Kitsune Chaos
by NetRaptor
Summary: Tails mysteriously vanishes, and at the same time, kitsunes attack the Floating Island. But this is only the beginning.
1. Chapter 1

Kitsune Chaos

by K.M. Hollar

Copyright info: Sonic the Hedgehog and related characters copyrighted by Sega, Archie, and DiC. Used without permission. This story and all original characters copyrighted 2009 by K.M. Carroll.

* * *

Chapter 1: Abduction

* * *

It was an hour after sunset. The Floating Island rested in the water alongside hundreds of other small islands, dwarfing them, and yet blending in.

Three figures dressed in black rowed quietly across the channel from the nearest island. Their oars were muffled, and the oars rose and fell slowly, making as small of splashes as possible.

Each figure was a black fox with four tails. They carried small, oddly-shaped handguns at their waists, and in the bottom of the boat was a four-foot-wide contraption like a metal box strung full of wires.

They reached the Floating Island's beach and pulled their boat up on the sand. The three of them lifted it and hid it in the brush, then stood quietly to listen and watch. All was quiet. Their leader unhooked a pocket scanner from his belt and activated it. He studied it a moment, and his companions waited, silent in the twilight.

"A mile north," breathed the leader. Scanner in hand, he set off up the beach and entered the trees. His companions followed.

They walked through trees and swampy forest, trying to move silently. The warm woods were full of insect song, and their passing scarcely disturbed it. Sometimes their boots squished in mud or splashed through shallow water. It had rained earlier in the day, and the Floating Island retained an amazing amount of water. The kitsunes could feel the throb of chaos power that held the island's ecosystems in check. Such a small amount of power, yet the Master Emerald was capable of so much more.

What did the idiot Guardian use it for? To make an island float. The lead kitsune, nicknamed Soot for his color, allowed himself a smile. If the kitsunes possessed the Master Emerald, they would rule the world.

Soot led his companions toward higher ground. The trees thinned, and patches of dim purple sky appeared. He halted and peered out. In the distance he saw the cheery yellow lights from the Guardian's house. He had made no attempt to hide it. And why should he? The Guardian had few enemies these days. Possibly he had forgotten the old blood feud with the kitsune race.

The kitsunes had not forgotten.

Silently they spread out and ringed the house, keeping to the shelter of the trees. They blended with the darkness like shadows, almost invisible. The house was large and rambling, and looked as if the Guardian had added on to it several times. How many people lived on this island, anyway? Soot looked worriedly at the places where his companions were hidden. Maybe he should have had more hunters assigned to this mission.

He waited until his foxes were in position, their guns covering the front door. Then he stepped up on the porch, drew his gun, and opened the door.

His limbs froze. He gasped for breath, but his lungs could hardly move. He flew up into the air and crashed into the ceiling, then fell to the floor, still frozen in the same position. The door slammed behind him.

His searching eyes found a white hedgehog with spines that stood straight up. His eyes were locked on Soot, and one hand was outstretched, pointing at him. He was telekinetic! Soot had not anticipated this!

The Guardian stood beside him, a burly red echidna with huge fists and long dreadlocks. As Soot crashed to the floor, the Guardian strode forward, grabbed him by the shirt and snarled, "Who are you and why are you here?"

Soot could not speak while under the telekinetic paralysis. The Guardian motioned to the white hedgehog, who squinted. Soot's head suddenly could move, but the rest of his body was still frozen. "If you kill me, you two will die where you stand," he snarled.

The echidna punched him in the face. It was a leisurely sort of punch, as the Guardian hardly put effort into it, but it still knocked Soot against the wall and left his ears ringing.

"I'm not too worried about your buddies," said the Guardian. "By now my wife will have taken care of them. I want to know about you." He kicked Soot's fanned-out tails. "You're a kitsune. What does a kitsune want with me and my island?"

Soot managed a short laugh. "You have the largest focal point of chaos energy on the planet here on this island. I'm surprised the whole world hasn't come after you. Let us be the first."

The Guardian stooped and pulled the gun out of Soot's frozen hand. He turned it over and looked at it. "Nice. Uses a chaos drive. I think I'll keep it." He folded his arms. "So, somebody wants the Master Emerald and they sent kitsunes. Who are you working for?"

"Kitsunes only represent Kitsunes," said Soot, managing to put pride into his voice, despite his throbbing snout. "Kill me now, because you'll get no more information than that."

"I don't think so," said the Guardian. "I think I'll turn you over to the Mobian government instead. I think the Senate will be very interested in your claims."

Light flickered over Soot's body. He laughed as he felt the telekinesis's hold on him slip. He laughed as his body turned transparent. Then he vanished, still laughing.

Knuckles cursed. "He teleported! Silver, couldn't you hold him?"

The white hedgehog shook his head. "No, once he started going, there was nothing for me to grasp anymore. He's gone."

Knuckles crossed the room and picked up a radio. "Zephyer?"

"I got two of them," said his wife's voice. "I didn't mean to kill them, but I think the Master Emerald picked up my anger. It toasted them as soon as I spotted them."

"Just as well," said Knuckles, suddenly weary. "Are there any more invaders?"

"Not that I've found. I guess they expected to find you alone."

"Good thing I'm not," growled Knuckles. "Come back to the surface, Zeff. I get to clean up kitsune ash."

As soon as the kitsunes had set foot on the island, Knuckles and Zephyer had known that there were intruders. Zephyer took the new baby, Talon and the chao to Hidden Palace, while Silver and Knuckles remained in the house as decoys. It was pathetically easy to trap the kitsunes. But one had escaped, and next time they would send an army. Knuckles thought that it was time to move the Floating Island.

About five thousand feet straight up.

* * *

That same evening, Tails was tinkering with the Tornado.

The Tornado was a small machine that had started out as a biplane. But Tails had modified it so it could transform into a a mechanical walker with two legs and a tail-mounted laser. He had also added a boat mode so it could float, and along the way had integrated a nanite brain. The Tornado was now a sentient robot with a pleasant personality, for it had imprinted on Tails.

Tails had recently installed a thrall sphere; a strange glowing crystal ball that he had found on the Floating Island. It transmitted chaos energy as sound waves, and it could hypnotize Tails if he listened to its melody too long. It also needed constant recharging from a chaos emerald.

Tails had worked around this problem by hooking the sphere up to the Tornado's batteries, insuring that the sphere always had a power source. His latest project was hooking up a sensor array so the Tornado could use the thrall sphere as radar.

He stooped over the Tornado's nose. The paneling was peeled back, and the sphere lit the inside of the engine housing with a warm orange glow. "How's this?" Tails asked, pressing a sticky rubber cup against the sphere.

"Noise," said the Tornado.

Tails moved the suction cups around. "I am picking up harmonics," said the Tornado. "But I cannot process it."

The orange fox kept moving the suction cups and checking their readings, his two tails twitching with concentration. When he used the sphere, he had to move his bare hands around on it until he reached the perfect note, rather like rubbing a finger along a crystal wine glass. The suction cups did not play the sphere as well as hands did, and the thrall sphere's sound kept turning into a discord.

Tails straightened up, stretched and rubbed his back. "Man, I'm getting stiff. How long have we been doing this?"

"Forty-six minutes," said the Tornado. It had two blue eye-lights on either side of its nose, and these followed Tails as he walked around his workshop. "Perhaps you should call it a night. You have school tomorrow."

"I already finished my assignment," said Tails, opening drawers in his workbench and pawing through their contents. "All I had to do was wire a circuit. Big deal."

"Sixteen is very young to enter college," the Tornado pointed out. "It will grow more difficult."

"I hope so!" said Tails, standing up, eyes alight. "You should see the machine shop! The teacher has a ten-foot walker with treads that he built himself! He told me that he's trying to get some chaos drives in for us to experiment with next semester." He rubbed his hands together and practically giggled.

The workshop door opened and Sonic looked in. "Hey Tails, care if I come in?"

"Sure, Sonic," said Tails, clearing off a dusty stool.

Sonic perched on it and looked around. "Hi, Tornado."

"Greetings, Sonic," said the plane.

"How goes the thrall sphereing?" asked the blue hedgehog, grinning at Tails.

"Not so well," said Tails, pulling a tangle of wires out of a drawer and inspecting it. "The sensor pads I'm using to tune the sphere just don't conduct sound right. I'm thinking of something metal."

Sonic frowned, thinking. "You know, when the Mecha bots have used emeralds, they always had little pointed metal dealies attached to it. Really small surface area, you know?"

Tails gazed at Sonic, suddenly thoughtful. "Hmm. You know, that may be what I'm missing. The suction cups have too large of an area ..." He trailed off into mumbling and rummaged around in the drawers under his workbench. He emerged with a handful of probes with wires dangling from them, salvaged from some other machine. He selected one, stripped the plastic coating off its wires, dashed to the Tornado and began unhooking one of the suction cups. He rewired the probe onto the sensor wire and touched it to the thrall sphere's surface.

"That is a much clearer signal," said the Tornado. "More focused."

Tails fiddled with the probe, thinking aloud. "If I built a rig that let you control the contact points, you could tune it yourself ... that would be more accurate than me trying to do it."

He stepped back, turned around to face the workbench, and vanished.

"Uh, what?" said Sonic, not believing what he had just seen. "Tails?" He stood up and looked around the room. "Tails?"

"Scans detect Tails nowhere within three miles," said the Tornado. "Addition: there was a small pulse of chaos energy just before he disappeared."

Sonic swallowed, trying not to panic. "Okay. So he chaos controlled. Without an emerald. Maybe somebody else teleported him?"

"Perhaps," said the Tornado. "However, if such an ability exists, it is unknown to us at this time."

Sonic left the workshop so fast he almost sucked the Tornado out the door.

* * *

"Tails has never had a very strong signal," said Sally. "I do have his signature, though."

"How long will it take to find him?" asked Sonic, tapping one foot.

Sally Acorn was in her hut, all the window shades drawn and the door locked. On her desk in front of them was a strange little machine with a radar dish that was plugged into Sally's handheld computer, Nicole. The machine was the most powerful chaos tracker in the world, built by Rotor and Tails, and kept dead secret.

Nicole's screen showed an outline of West Mobius in green, sprinkled with green dots of varying brightness. Each dot was the personal chaos aura of a random Mobian. Most Mobians had a chaos aura, some stronger than others. Sonic's aura was a flaming inferno of energy from so much contact with the chaos emeralds, and Sally had had to filter him out.

"Well, this is all of West Mobius," said Sally, running a hand worriedly through her auburn forelock. "And he's not here."

"He's not on the continent?" asked Sonic in disbelief. "That was one heck of a teleport!"

"How strong was this pulse of chaos energy?" she asked, turning to look at him. "Did you feel it?"

"No," said Sonic. "The Tornado said it was small. And usually I notice the energy when somebody teleports. It takes a lot of energy to move mass around like that. But if he's not even on the continent anymore ..." Sonic had to lean against the wall for support. "What in the world are we dealing with?"

"Nicole, scan the northern hemisphere," said Sally. "Time estimate?"

"Time estimate: six hours," Nicole replied.

"Sal," said Sonic in a low voice, "what if we can't find him because he's dead?"

Sally stared at him a moment. "No," she said. "No, he's still alive. He was only teleported, Sonic. To put it another way, he was kidnapped. It's only been a few minutes, and it would take longer than that to kill Tails." She stood, lifted the tracker and Nicole, set them inside her rolltop desk, and closed the cover.

Sonic looked at the desk as if she had just closed the lid of a coffin.

Sally put her arms around him. Sonic was rigid and cold, breathing fast. "Calm down," she told him. "Tails is all right. You'll see."

"I can't stand around and do nothing," Sonic whispered. "I've got to ... got to go run. I'll be back later."

Sally let go and watched him dash out the door. It was completely dark by this time, and she lost sight of him at once. She stood in the doorway, gazing after him, mind racing. Who would kidnap Tails? And why?


	2. Chapter 2

Tails sat on the floor, head spinning. What had just happened to him?

As the ringing in his ears subsided, he realized he was in a large room filled with people. Not just people. Foxes. Everyone was standing or sitting like him, eyes wide and stunned. As he looked around, he realized he had never seen so many foxes in one place before. They were all the colors of the rainbow, ranging from warm oranges and golds to blues and violets. What was more, many of them had more than one tail.

As he looked around, Tails realized that the floor was made of pale orange crystal. It glowed slightly, and it took him a moment to recognize it. It looked just like one of Knuckles's teleporters on the Floating Island. But this was enormous.

A few feet away sat a very young black fox with three tails. She had her thumb in her mouth, and was staring around with tears welling in her eyes. Tails didn't want to deal with a screaming kit, so he reached over and patted her shoulder. "It's okay," he told her.

She looked at him, then crawled over and climbed into his lap. This was not what Tails had wanted, but she sniffed and wiped her eyes. He sighed and gingerly rubbed her head fur. At least she wasn't howling.

"Attention," said a female voice over an amplifier. "Please look this way."

Tails looked around and saw a yellow kitsune with a mass of tails behind her holding a microphone to her mouth. She stood on a raised platform at the far end of the room. The crowd turned to face her, and Tails stood up. The little cub clung to his leg with one arm, her other thumb still in her mouth.

"Welcome to the kitsune city of Azul, the capital of our people. You must be wondering what you are doing here," said the kitsune, including them all with a sweep of her arm. "You have all been brought here because you are members of our noble and ancient race, the kitsunes. There are urgent matters we must discuss with our entire race, even those who did not realize who they truly were."

"Can we go home soon?" someone called.

The yellow kitsune nodded. "Soon, once matters here are settled. Behind you is a door. Please form a line, and you will be shown to your quarters within the city."

Tails shuffled into line with the other foxes, the young black one still hanging on to his leg. He craned his neck and peered toward the door. It was very high, at least ten feet, made of paneled wood and engraved with diamonds and other geometric shapes. In front of it was a kitsune with a clipboard, taking down names.

Tails picked up the cub. "What's your name?" he asked her softly.

She just stared at him.

"My name is Miles Prower," he whispered, "but my friends call me Tails. Because I have two, see?"

A ghost of a smile touched the kit's eyes. As Tails inched forward in line, she pulled her thumb out of her mouth and whispered in his ear, "My name is Dusk." She returned her thumb to her mouth, looking as if she had just told him a secret.

"Thanks," he whispered back.

The kitsune with the clipboard looked bored by the time Tails and Dusk reached him. "Names, please," he said.

"I'm Miles Prower, and this is Dusk," said Tails.

The kitsune's pen hesitated a fraction of a second. "Miles ... Prower," he said, glancing sharply at Tails's face. "Yes. Is Dusk your child?"

"No," said Tails, horrified. "She was just sitting next to me and she's scared."

"I see." The kitsune waved them through. "Next."

Tails walked out the door and found himself in a long hallway with windows along the left wall. Outside the windows sparkled thousands of lights, and Tails detoured to look out. He and Dusk stared.

The building they were in was up on a hill. Below them stretched warmly-lit streets and tall, needle-like towers lined with purple and gold lights. Tails was stunned at the sheer size of the place. The city stretched off into the distance until the darkness hid it, with only the sparkle of lights on the horizon to indicate where it might end. It looked like Sapphire City or one of the other really big cities down south. Were there really that many kitsunes?

"Come along, come along," said a brisk voice behind him. He turned to find a male fox in a uniform approaching him. "I'll show you to your rooms. No need to gawk at Azul--you'll see it much better tomorrow morning."

Tails followed this fox and counted his tails. Five. "How do you get so many tails?" Tails asked. "Are you born with them?"

The uniformed fox laughed. "Oh no. Sometimes you're born with them. Traditionally, a kitsune receives a new tail every one hundred years of life. However, our race doesn't live quite that long anymore. Now we tend to grow a new tail every thirty or forty years."

"So ... you're like ... a hundred and fifty?" asked Tails in awe.

"Thereabouts," said the uniformed fox, grinning. He pulled a key from his pocket and unlocked a door engraved with stars. "Here are your rooms, I assume you'll be sharing with the little one, there." He pushed open the door and Tails and Dusk stepped inside. It was a plush apartment twice as large as Tails's hut back home. There was a large living room furnished with two sofas, a table and chairs, and a bookcase that covered one wall. Beyond that were two more rooms Tails guessed were the bathroom and bedroom.

"Goodnight, sir," said the doorman. He closed the door and left.

Tails and Dusk explored. The bedroom had two twin beds and was carpeted with a rug so thick that their feet sank into it. The bathroom was equally huge. Instead of a shower, it had a giant stand-alone tub, and had a shake-stall next door behind a curtain. Tails grinned to himself. Human bathrooms had no shake-stalls, because humans had no fur to shake off.

The tiny kitchen had a cardboard box on the counter. Tails opened it and found a stack of wrapped food parcels. "Dusk, look, dinner!" he said. He had eaten dinner a few hours ago in Knothole--had it really only been a few hours?--but being kidnapped had given him an appetite.

The box held three kinds of pies: meat, vegetable, and fruit. They were made like a tart, a flaky pastry wrapped around a filling. Also in the box were several oranges and a jug of cider.

Tails and Dusk demolished almost all the pies, most of the oranges, and half the cider. "Not bad," said Tails, licking his fingers. "What do you think of this place, Dusk?"

She just looked at him and said nothing.

She remained silent until they went to bed, which was shortly afterward. They had been in their beds about five minutes when Dusk whimpered, "I want to go home."

"Me too," said Tails. He had noticed with dismay that aside from lights, there were no electronics in this room: no television or computer. No gadgets. He could never live here with no gadgets.

Dusk whimpered a little more, then jumped out of her bed and climbed into Tails's.

"Aw man," he said, "you don't want to sleep with me, do you? There's no room!"

She stuck her thumb in her mouth and nodded.

Tails groaned and slid to the edge of the mattress, and Dusk nestled down beside him. In moments she was asleep, leaving Tails to lie awake and stare at the ceiling. With no electronics, how could he send a message home to tell them where he was? Come to think of it, he didn't know where he was. He had never heard of the city of Azul. Inter-continental teleports were hard enough ... had they moved him to one of the other continents? If so, he really needed to find out how they had done it. They had teleported all those other foxes at the same time ... like a colossal, selective Chaos Control. But wouldn't they need all the Chaos Emeralds for something that powerful?

As Tails was dozing off, a long-forgotten fact swam to the surface of his mind. Kitsunes couldn't use Chaos Emeralds. They used the global chaos field instead.

* * *

Sonic ran mindlessly, letting his feet follow the road to New Mobitropolis. Once he reached it, he took the turnoff and ran south, toward Riverbase. There was no traffic at this hour, and the road was wide and empty. The world was a dim, rushing blankness on either side, and he filled it with his speed.

Tails was gone. It throbbed in his head in time to the pounding of his feet. Gone, gone, Tails is gone.

He reached Riverbase and turned around, heading back north to New Mobitropolis. They had teleported Tails without an emerald ... Who was capable of such a thing? Robotnik? Mecha? Shadow? Mecha and Shadow, maybe ... but why just take Tails? Mecha had told Tails over and over to leave him alone, and Tails had finally taken the hint.

Sonic clenched his teeth and felt the remaining ache in his jaw from when Shadow had broken it earlier in the summer. Spending all summer eating through a straw had not been enjoyable. Sonic harbored the secret wish to break Shadow's jaw and see how Shadow liked it. But that had nothing to do with Tails or why anybody wanted to kidnap him.

Right now they needed to find out where he was, and the scanner would take six hours to scan the northern hemisphere. But what if Tails was in the southern hemisphere instead? It would be past noon tomorrow before they found out, and Sonic didn't think he could wait that long.

Maybe ... maybe the Tornado could find him with the thrall sphere. Tails had been working on just such a thing ... maybe Sonic could tweak it so the Tornado could find him.

He slowed down as he entered Knothole again, knowing that people were in bed by now. He trotted to Tails's workshop and entered.

"Hello Sonic," said the Tornado, its blue eyes tracking his movements.

The lights were still on, the tools just as they had been when Tails had vanished. The metal probe hung over the side of the Tornado's engine housing, waiting for Tails to pick it up again. Sonic fought back a sudden lump in his throat. He walked to the Tornado, swallowed and said, "Tornado, could you track Tails?"

"Affirmative, Sonic," said the Tornado. "I have already done so and have a report already prepared."

Sonic stared down at its eyes. "You what? You know where he is?"

"Yes," said the Tornado smugly. "Tails included the thrall sphere in my tracking scanner. It is the communications device that he was working on."

Sonic jumped into the cockpit. "Show me!"

The screen in the cockpit lit and displayed a colored image of the Mobius globe. The camera zoomed in across West Mobius to North Mobius, which displayed as a white, glacier-locked mass. It zoomed in on the white and located a mass of glowing green dots.

Sonic watched in silence as the Tornado overlaid a topographical map over the white, to show that while North Mobius was covered in mountains, this green mass was down in a deep, oblong valley.

"What is that?" Sonic asked.

"I am not certain," said the Tornado. "None of the information networks have any data on North Mobius. Hypothesis: an unknown city?"

"All those dots are people, right?" Sonic said. "You're sure it's a city and Tails isn't stranded in the snow or something?"

"The population scan is quite dense," said the Tornado. "It could not be something even as small as a town. Only a city can support numbers like these. I shall have more information in the morning. Satellites do not normally study North Mobius, but I have located one that passes over it early tomorrow morning, and have loaded it with several queries."

Sonic stared at that mass of green dots. Who lived up there, separated from the rest of the world and unknown to anyone? And why would they take Tails?

Sonic dropped by Sally's hut and told her about the Tornado's findings. She looked at the chaos tracker and said, "I'll let it go ahead and finish, just in case it turns up something the Tornado missed. At least we know where Tails is."

"It doesn't make me feel any better, though," said Sonic, spines drooping. "How are we supposed to get up there and get him back? I can't teleport that far, and there's no roads in North Mobius."

"That we know of," said Sally. "A population that size has to get its food and resources somewhere. Maybe they have underground roads, who knows?"

They stayed up late talking about it. By midnight, when Sonic finally crawled into bed in his hut, they had answered no questions. He lay there in the dark, staring at the ceiling, still too keyed-up to sleep. A teleport across the world.

Slowly a memory surfaced in his mind. Of being stranded in a desert in East Mobius, only to have Knuckles bring them all home with a weird teleport triggered by thrall spheres and the Master Emerald. It used chaos power, but no chaos emeralds.

Tomorrow, after he'd talked to Sally and the Tornado, he'd give Knuckles a call.

* * *

Tails was walking down a long, empty road. He was tired, yet he knew he needed to finish his journey, so he kept walking.

In the distance, he saw another person walking toward him. Another kitsune. As they neared each other, Tails realized that the other kitsune was floating, not walking. And its eyes looked strange.

As it drew closer, he realized it was not a fox at all. It was a stuffed fox toy with two tails. It was life-sized, and its eyes were just patches of fabric stitched on the front of its head. Protruding from the top of its head was a short antenna with a red flashing beacon on the end.

Tails stopped, struck by sudden horror. It was not real, it was not even alive, yet it was still moving, floating toward him.

He awoke with his heart trying to leap out of his ribcage. He gasped deep breaths and looked wildly around the unfamiliar room. Oh, right, he was in the kitsune city. There was no sign of the doll. Dusk was still curled up beside him, and she had nearly pushed him off the bed.

Tails climbed out of bed, walked to the window and opened the curtain. Outside it was blue dawn. He could see a tree-lined street outside, with streetlamps that were still lit, but dimming now as the sky brightened. The buildings across the street blocked his view of the horizon, so he could not see if the city was truly as vast as it had appeared the night before.

He left Dusk sleeping, padded into the kitchen, and poked around for some sort of breakfast. There were two pies left from dinner the night before, so he nibbled one of them. He wanted a computer, or the Tornado, or any kind of electronic gizmo. He circled their rooms, opening all the cupboards and cabinets. He located all sorts of books and magazines (none of which he had ever heard of), but no machines.

He finished his pie and took a quick shower, dried off and pulled on his socks and shoes. He emerged from the bathroom to find Dusk sitting on the counter, eating the other pie.

"Morning, Dusk," he said.

She nodded slightly. She had already put on her own shoes, he noticed. He sat in one of the living room chairs, noticing that it had a very deep back to accommodate multiple tails. "So Dusk," he said, "what do you think we'll do today?"

She shrugged and licked her fingers.

Tails missed Sonic. Sonic talked back. Without someone to talk to, Tails could not fight the deep, rising panic in his stomach. If only Dusk talked! He could face kidnapping easier if he could just laugh it off.

Because that's what this was. He had been kidnapped. So had Dusk. And he had no idea why.

A knock at the door. Tails jumped up and opened it. Another kitsune in uniform stood outside, this one smoky gray and with a grim expression. "Miles Prower and Dusk?" he asked.

"That's us," said Tails as Dusk crowded up beside him to look out.

"Come with me, please," said the kitsune. "Someone wants to speak with you."

* * *

Knuckles sat on his front porch, a faded parchment spread out on his lap. The writing was so faint that he could hardly see it, and he had to view it in sunlight. He balanced his notebook on his knees and scribbled down a copy as fast as he could write.

The teleporter down by the road a hundred feet away flashed. Knuckles looked up with a jerk, half-expecting to see a kitsune. Instead he recognized Sonic's blue spiky hair, and relaxed.

Sonic rushed up to him, and Knuckles grabbed his notebook and parchment to keep them from blowing away. "You know, it's polite to call first," Knuckles growled.

"Sorry," said Sonic. He had a paper in one hand. "I've kind of got a problem I need to talk to you about. Like, right now."

"I'm busy," said Knuckles, pointing at his notebook.

"You're always busy," said Sonic, sitting on the step beside him. "Tails disappeared last night. We think he was kidnapped by chaos control somehow."

Knuckles had returned to writing, but at this his hand froze, poised over his notebook. "What time?" he asked without moving.

"Seven, seven-thirty," said Sonic. "We were in his garage, and he was working on the Tornado. Then he just ... vanished. Poof. It didn't even make a chaos energy ripple, or I'd have felt it."

Knuckles sat in silence for a long moment, staring into the distance. Sonic waited, trying not to fidget. He knew Knuckles needed a long time to think, but patience was not one of Sonic's strongest virtues.

"Sonic," said Knuckles at last, "last night we were attacked by three kitsunes. They had come to kill me and take the Master Emerald."

Sonic dropped his paper. "You're kidding."

"No," said Knuckles, watching as Sonic scrambled to pick up his paper before the dewy grass ruined it. "Zephyer killed the two henchmen, but the leader got away. He teleported. It was a little after seven o'clock."

"Seven o' clock," said Sonic, arranging his papers. "How did Zephyer kill them? Snipe them from the window?"

"Master Emerald thing," said Knuckles shortly. "She didn't mean to. The point is, the kitsune vanished at the same time that Tails did."

"Where did the kitsune go?" asked Sonic.

Knuckles shrugged. "Beats me. Back to wherever they live, I guess."

Sonic set his paper on Knuckles's notebook. "Wanna bet he went here?"

Knuckles stared. It was a map of North Mobius, and printed over it was a grid with a valley outlined in heavy black lines. Inside this valley was the blocky outline of a city.

"The Tornado tracked Tails here," said Sonic, pointing to the city. "It's not on any maps. The Tornado got these pictures early this morning and printed them for us. Sally and I used the tracker and everything, but the Tornado beat us to it. Don't the kitsunes only use the chaos field? Tails could never use the chaos emeralds."

"Shut up a minute," said Knuckles. He rubbed his temples. "Dang, you spit out information like a machine gun." He looked at the map a moment longer, then slid it aside and looked at his notebook. "I've been researching the kitsunes since I got up this morning. Specifically, kitsune-echidna interaction."

He looked at Sonic. "The kitsunes and the echidnas have been at war off and on for centuries. Kitsunes purified their race of all kitsunes who could use chaos emeralds, and bred themselves to only use the chaos field. The Master Emerald isn't a chaos emerald--it's actually more of a hub for the global field. And they want it. Hence the wars."

"Why'd they come after you now?" asked Sonic.

"Heck if I know," said Knuckles. "One thing really worries me, though. Tails knows all about Hidden Palace and the Master Emerald. He helped you charge the super emeralds, for crying out loud. If they question him, he could tell them everything they need to know to take the Floating Island."

Sonic turned a faint green. After a moment he said, "But Tails wouldn't tell them ... would he?"

"How could he know that they want the Master Emerald?" said Knuckles. "All he'd know is that they've kidnapped him. I just hope he has the sense to keep his mouth shut."

* * *

Tails and Dusk followed the guard outdoors for the first time. The air was surprisingly warm, and as Tails looked around, he realized the city was surrounded by snowcapped mountains. Shouldn't it feel colder than this?

The guard led them to one of the tall tower-like buildings. It was built of some kind of blue stone that Tails had never seen before, and it glittered as they drew closer. The guard opened the door for them and held it as they entered. Dusk clung to Tails's hand, her other thumb in her mouth.

They entered a small room with a hallway leading to a staircase. No elevators, Tails noticed. Again, no machinery. They followed the guard up the stairs, and Tails counted the guard's tails. Three. He must be a lower rank.

They arrived on a landing, and the guard opened a door. Inside was a small bare room with a table and two chairs. "In here," said the guard.

Tails and Dusk stepped in, and the guard closed the door.

Tails looked around. There was a large window with one-way glass on the left wall, and two empty chairs on the far side of the table. He pulled out a chair and sat down. "I guess we have to wait," he said.

Dusk remained standing beside his chair, still holding his hand and sucking her thumb. She stared at the empty chairs opposite them.

"Why don't you sit down?" Tails asked her.

She held up her arms for him to pick her up. He sighed and lifted her into his lap. He had never had much to do with little kids, and wasn't quite sure how to handle Dusk. He wished she would speak to him.

She kept staring at the empty chairs across from them and resumed sucking her thumb. Tails looked around the room again, and especially at the one-way glass. Their interrogators were probably back there somewhere, watching them. Didn't police make prisoners wait sometimes to try to break them down? Well, Tails had nothing to hide. He wondered what they expected to accomplish.

Dusk took her thumb out of her mouth and said, "Why are you hiding like that?"

She was not looking at Tails. She was still looking at the empty chairs.

To Tails's utmost shock, two kitsunes in uniforms appeared in the chairs, one with a notepad. He scribbled something down, while his companion stared at Dusk with blue eyes so light they appeared white.

"Interesting," said the white-eyed kitsune. "The young one can see through kitsune illusion." He looked at Tails. "You could not see us at all, correct?"

"No," said Tails, quivering inside. Kitsune illusion? His fright added to his inner panic. He was glad that Dusk did not seem afraid, and told himself that if a cub could handle two invisible kitsunes, then so could he.

"I am Inquisitor Frost," said the white-eyed kitsune. His fur was a pale ice-blue, and Tails understood how he got his name. "This is my deputy, Investigator Wingard. Now that our first test is over, we have a few questions for you."

Tails nodded, swallowing.

Frost gazed at Tails, unblinking. His white eyes were creepy, zombie-like. Tails remembered his dream of the fox-doll and repressed a shudder.

"Your name is Miles Prower," said Frost. "Can you tell us anything of your family?"

"Um, I don't know anything about my parents," said Tails. "I lost them in the Robotropolis coup. A hedgehog named Sonic found me and he kind of raised me."

"Hm," said Frost, as Wingard wrote this down. "You remember nothing of them? Not even their names?"

Tails frowned. "I can kind of remember my mom ... I think her name was Rose. I can't remember my dad at all." He sometimes tried to remember his parents, but the memories were so faint that he couldn't recall them. Stronger and clearer was the memory of hiding from robots and seeing Sonic's pitying face for the first time.

"Your mother's name was Rosemary," said Frost. Tails wished he would blink: Frost's fixed stare was making his own eyes itch. "Rosemary left Azul when she obtained her third tail. She married your father, Amadeus Prower, when both had reached their sixth tails. We are uncertain when they had you, but it must have been after they both passed eight, to have produced a child with two."

Tails wondered who Dusk's parents were, because she had three. But he said nothing. He had never known any of this.

"Your father, Amadeus, fought against Dr. Robotnik's takeover. He was one of the first roboticized." Frost blinked at last.

Tails felt a distant sadness. So that was how his father had died. At least he knew for certain now, rather than his father's fate being a big question mark. Somehow he had always hoped that his parents were still alive somewhere.

"We believed he died," Frost went on, still watching Tails, "but we later unearthed records that showed that his great chaos power destroyed most of his body. He was abducted by a human probe force and taken back to the colonies. There his records vanish. All but one: a record of the date of his death. It is safe to say that they probably experimented on him most thoroughly."

Tails's sadness turned to a feeling of revulsion. He wished Frost had stopped telling him this. "I thought you were going to question me, not tell me my family history," he said.

"Yes," said Frost. "There is much we wish to know about you, Miles. Who is this hedgehog, Sonic?"

"He's my friend," said Tails proudly. "He's the fastest runner in the world, and he's saved the world loads of times."

"Is he a chaos user?" asked Frost.

"Yeah," said Tails. "He uses the chaos emeralds all the time."

Frost blinked and his mouth tightened. Tails remembered that the kitsunes didn't use chaos emeralds at all.

"But he cannot use the field itself," said Frost.

"No," said Tails.

"Very well," said Frost. "I believe you lived with a terrorist cell that fought against Dr. Robotnik."

"Freedom Fighters," said Tails. "We never blew up anything but Robotnik's stuff. And yeah, I did."

Frost quizzed him about the Freedom Fighters: what sorts of operations Tails participated in, how many lives had been lost, and if Tails had any chaos powers that he used to aid them. Tails, thinking of Sonic's chaos control, said no. It was not until hours later that he remembered that he could fly with his tails. He didn't consider it a chaos power.

Frost dug deeper into Tails's personal history. When Tails talked about going to college to learn to build better robots, Frost actually laughed. He had a cold, harsh laugh. "What use has a kitsune for machines? As you grow stronger, they will disintegrate under your touch. It is a futile pursuit. I advise you to abandon it."

Tails's fear turned to red fury. He tried to mask it, however. He would rather be angry than afraid, anyway.

Frost turned his attention to Dusk, but had little success with her. She only sucked her thumb and stared at him, matching his stare without blinking.

"What do you know about her?" Frost finally asked Tails.

"She was beside me on the platform when I got here," said Tails. "She was scared, so I tried to cheer her up, and she's hung on to me ever since. All she's said is that her name is Dusk."

"Hm," said Frost. "She is so young, yet she has three tails and sees through kitsune illusion. It is a pity she refuses to speak." He looked into her eyes and said, "But you will talk to us eventually. Everyone does."

Tails didn't like the sound of that.

Frost rose to his feet. "You are dismissed. You are free to move about the city. Duties will be assigned to you."

Tails and Dusk stood up, Tails stiffly--his legs had gone to sleep from holding Dusk on his lap for so long. They opened the door and stepped out, glad to see the light of day and breathe the fresher air. Tails limped down the stairs with Dusk hopping beside him, acting happy for the first time.

As they stepped outdoors, Tails growled at her, "You sure are bouncy now."

"The scary fox left me alone," she said. "His friend kept painting things behind me, but I always knew they weren't real."

The fur on the back of Tails's neck prickled. "Hey Dusk," he said, lowering his voice, "next time you see something that isn't real, tell me. I can't tell when it's fake or not."

She looked at him and nodded solemnly.


	3. Chapter 3

Sally knocked at the door of Sonic's hut, and listened. Sonic was moving about inside, making various scrapes and thumps. "Sonic?" she called.

The door opened and the blue hedgehog appeared. "I'm packing," he said, returning to his work as she stepped into the room. Sonic's belongings were scattered about his hut, and a pair of socks hung out of a half-filled backpack on his bed. "I'm taking my winter stuff, because who knows how cold it is up there ..."

"You're going to North Mobius?" asked Sally.

"Of course," said Sonic. "How else am I supposed to rescue Tails?"

Sally tried to hide a smile. "Planning to walk all the way?"

"Heck no, there's mountains and stuff," said Sonic. "I'm taking the Tornado. It knows where we're going, and plus I need to get in some flying time or my pilot's license will expire."

"Hmm," said Sally, and left, shutting the door quietly behind her. Sonic paused a moment, looking at the door. It was odd for Sally to not remark about how stupid this plan was, or to try to improve on it somehow. He shrugged and dug his heavy coat out of his closet.

As he was trying to stuff it into his resisting backpack, there came another knock at his door. "Come in," he grunted.

The door opened and a long, reptilian head poked into the room. "Hello Sonic."

"Hi Slasher," said Sonic, finally forcing his coat inside and trying to zip his backpack shut.

Slasher was a six-foot tall mongrel velociraptor with biomechanical wings. She had played surrogate mother to most of the Freedom Fighters for years, and now that they were grown, had jobs, and were no longer at war, she looked after the children of Knothole. Sonic hadn't seen her in a few weeks.

"Sally told me about Tails," she said, leaning against the doorjam. Her tail was so long that she couldn't enter Sonic's hut without knocking everything over. "I see you're going after him."

"Yep," said Sonic, spying a glove that had escaped and unzipping his backpack again.

"I understand that this kitsune city is in a valley in the mountains of North Mobius," said Slasher.

Sonic nodded. "She showed you the maps?"

"Yes," said the raptor, bobbing her head. "But you don't happen to know anything else about that valley, do you?"

"No, should I?" said Sonic, half-sitting on his backpack to force it to close.

Slasher opened the door all the way. In her forearms was an old, leather-bound book, and etched on its cover in faded gold leaf was the title, "Myths and Legends of Mobius."

"I think you should give this a look," she said. "Specifically, one certain passage."

Sonic straightened up, panting from his efforts to control his backpack. "All right, show me, then."

Slasher stepped a little farther into the room, letting the book fall open to a bookmark. Sonic walked up and looked at the pages. The print was tiny, sprinkled with old-fashioned pen and ink illustrations. Slasher indicated one paragraph with a claw tip. Sonic squinted at the tiny text and read aloud.

"In the frozen wastes of North Mobius, there lies a wondrous valley. The snow melts there and it is always spring. The water of the valley is said to have wondrous powers of healing and restoration, and the fruit of the trees there can heal any disease ..." Sonic stopped and looked at Slasher. "You expect me to believe this?"

"That's the myth," said Slasher. "You're not to the good part yet."

Sonic rolled his eyes and kept reading. "The valley is populated by fierce beasts, the likes of which Mobius has never seen. There dwell monsters with enormous heads and sharp teeth, large enough to swallow a man. There are beasts with the heads and tails of snakes and the bodies of elephants. A person dares not enter that valley for fear of them!"

Sonic looked at Slasher again. "Monsters, huh?"

"Probably dinosaurs," said Slasher, and her eyes lit up. "I want to go with you."

"But Slash," said Sonic, "the satellites show a big city, not random dinosaurs." Then Sonic realized what he was saying. "Ohhhh ..."

"This book was compiled centuries ago," said Slasher. "The myths are very old. Who's to say that we're really dealing with kitsunes here? What if it's chaos-wielding dinosaurs?"

Sonic stood frozen, staring at the book. He had met dinosaurs once before, on Flicky Island. Apparently the huge reptiles lived on in pockets across Mobius, refusing to adapt to Mobian culture and living out their lives as they had for eons. But if once of those groups had adapted ...

"Maybe you should come with us," said Sonic slowly.

* * *

Sonic's hut was locked and empty when Sally returned. She made a beeline for Tails's workshop instead, and found Sonic and Slasher there. Sonic was packing the Tornado with supplies, and deep in an argument with Slasher.

"You can't just fly, Slash. It's fall now and winter up there. You'll freeze to death."

"So what?" said Slasher. "You might need me to negotiate or interpret. Remember what happened last time."

"I do remember!" said Sonic. "We came this close to being eaten how many times? The point is, you can't fit in the plane, and if you fly, you'll get there weeks too late and probable freeze to death on the way."

"Hi," said Sally, by way of entering the discussion. "Why do you want to go, Slasher?"

Slasher picked up her book and showed Sally the passage. Sally caught on faster than Sonic had. "So, you think these dinosaurs kidnapped Tails?"

"I don't know what to think," said Slasher. "I just think it'd be a good idea if I went with you."

"Yeah," said Sonic, "but the trouble is getting her there."

"What's wrong with Chaos Control?" asked Sally.

There was a long silence.

"Why didn't I think of that first?" groaned Sonic.

"Because it's so obvious," said Sally, smiling. She walked to the Tornado and said, "Tornado, please display a map detailing your route."

The Tornado displayed a map on its cockpit screen. It had them traveling along the coast of West Mobius, due north, stopping at three different airstrips to refuel, before jumping across two hundred miles of ocean to North Mobius.

"We will need to pick up extra fuel before the crossing," said the Tornado. "We have no assurance that there are working airstrips in North Mobius."

"Good thinking," said Sonic. "I just hope there's somewhere to land."

Slasher walked up and looked over their heads at the map. "Perfect," she said. "I'll just fly along the coast and take a communicator. When you arrive, Sonic can pinpoint my location and jump down to pick me up. Simple."

Sonic scratched one ear, trying to see any flaws in this plan, but it seemed easy enough. "Unless we crash or get shot down," he said.

"In which case, I'll still arrive, just weeks too late," said Slasher with a grin.

* * *

Tails and Dusk walked down a narrow street. On one side was a high wall made of blue stone, and on the other side was a canal flowing with crystal-clear water.

A few minutes earlier, a purple kitsune had found them and told Tails to report to Foreman Zan in the generator district. "It says here that you like machines," the messenger had said, squinting at his clipboard. "That's the only job we had that fit your capability."

Dusk was told merely to accompany Tails, since no one knew what she liked.

So the two walked down the narrow side street, following the canal across the city to the western edge, which was against the side of the valley. As they neared the valley's edge, Tails saw that it was more like sheer rocky cliffs, sprinkled with trees.

"See any illusions?" asked Tails.

Dusk shook her head. She was watching the water in the canal, hoping to see a fish.

They turned a corner and saw in the distance a tower of yellow crystal, studded and criss-crossed with stone and glass supports. Tails's ears perked up, and he broke into a jog. "C'mon Dusk! There it is!"

Dusk ran after him, and soon they arrived at the base of the giant crystal. Tails felt the chaos power radiating from it like heat. It had glass insulators encircling it every fifteen feet, and it vanished into the pebbly ground.

"Hello," said a voice.

Tails and Dusk looked up see a dark blue kitsune in a hard hat climbing down a ladder toward them. He had seven tails, which was the most Tails had seen on anyone so far.

The kitsune reached the ground and shook their hands. "I'm Foreman Zan," he told them. "Are you my new help?"

"Yes sir," said Tails. "I just got here yesterday and I love machines."

"You only have two tails, so that's all right," said Zan, smiling. His eyes crinkled at the corners, as if he smiled a lot. Tails liked him.

Zan walked back to the base of the crystal and slid a toolbox out from under the scaffolding. He opened it, pulled out two sets of brushes, and handed them to Tails and Dusk. "Your job is to climb all over this conduit and clean off all the dust. It has a strong chaos charge, and it attracts dust like crazy. It shouldn't hurt you, though. I'm working up at the top if you need anything."

Tails and Dusk started brushing off the yellow crystal. It was, indeed covered in dust, and they soon had a cloud of it hanging around them. The crystal was warm to the touch and made the fur on their arms stand up. Tails tried to make out the energy flowing through it, but it looked like a steady glow to him. Like looking into a lightbulb.

When they had brushed the crystal as high as they could reach, Tails said, "Let's get up on the first row of scaffold."

Dusk nodded.

They climbed the ladder and began brushing off this new level of the crystal. Tails noticed that tiny bits of it flaked off as they brushed. When a larger piece broke off, he picked it up and called, "Foreman Zan?"

"Yes son?" the fox called down.

"Some of the crystal just broke off."

"It's all right," said Zan. "Crystal is the only thing that can channel chaos energy without melting, and even it slowly breaks apart. Just set the big bits aside and I'll look at them later."

As Tails and Dusk slowly worked their way up the crystal, Tails studied the scaffolding and the insulators around the crystal. It was indeed just a conduit, but he couldn't see where the energy went. The crystal sprang out of the ground, and at the top, where Zan was working, there was only an array of five small crystals in a pentagon around the top.

When they reached the level where Zan was working, Tails asked, "Excuse me, sir. Where does all this chaos energy go?"

"Into the shield, of course," said Zan. "You can see the nearest edge over there."

Tails and Dusk looked. There was a shimmer in the air between them and the cliff wall a hundred feet away, like heat haze.

"Why is there a shield?" asked Tails.

"To keep out enemies," said Zan. "The shield covers the whole city. Kitsunes can travel in and out, but nothing else can."

"What enemies?" asked Tails, thinking of Robotnik.

Zan shrugged. "Worrying about them isn't my job. My job's to maintain the conduits and generators. Keep your eyes open, and you'll find out soon enough."

Tails's hopes that Sonic would rescue him faded. If Sonic couldn't get in, then Tails would have to find a way out.

They kept brushing at the crystal and picking up the broken bits. After a while Tails ventured another question. "Sir, where does the energy come from, if the crystal is only a conduit?"

"This crystal is connected to a series in a chain under the city," said Zan. "They draw energy from the Rift."

"What's the Rift?" asked Tails.

"A big split in the ground that emits chaos energy," said Zan. "Do you know the history of the Chaos Emeralds?"

"Sort of," said Tails, trying to remember. "They were kind of like ... connected to Mobius at one point, right?"

"Right," said Zan. "Before the corruption came. When the emeralds broke away from Mobius, they left seven wounds in the global chaos field. Most of them are deep underground, but this one was split open by volcanic activity. It's why we built Azul here. It's a couple blocks north of here. See the crystal line?" He pointed.

Tails looked and saw a row of yellow crystal conduits identical to the one he was working on. They seemed to glow much brighter.

"You'll get to see them up close pretty soon," said Zan. "We have to maintain those today, too."

* * *

Sonic, Sally and Slasher departed Knothole at noon. Sonic couldn't wait any longer, and Sally simply grabbed her laptop, stowed her bag, and climbed into the Tornado's passenger seat.

Takeoff was slightly bumpy, as it had been a while since Sonic had taken the controls of the Tornado. Fortunately the Tornado knew how to fly better than Sonic did, and between them they managed to get airborne before crashing into the trees at the end of the runway. Slasher just shook her head, beat her wings, and took off northward.

The journey would take two days. Two long, worried days, according to Sonic. Flying was so boring once you were aloft! Nothing to do but sit and watch your instruments. Fortunately he voiced this sentiment to the Tornado after a few hours in the air.

"Yes, I get bored, too," said the Tornado. "How about a nice game of chess?"

Tails had installed an entire database of games on the plane's computer. Sonic amused himself by playing against the Tornado (and usually losing) as the sun sank lower and lower on their left.

Sally sat in the back with her laptop Nicole in her lap, catching up on all the work she had left at the office. She was far from bored, and working kept her mind off her growing apprehension of what awaited them at the end of their journey.

They stopped for the night at a small town several hundred miles north of Knothole, and left before the sun rose the next morning.

* * *

Tails stared down into the Chaos Rift. It looked like a dry streambed, about fifteen feet deep, with a dry, rocky bottom. But the rocks were sprinkled with glowing crystals, and beams of red light gleamed through the rocks in many places.

The fur all over his body prickled, and he felt vertigo, as if the world had tilted and was forcing him to stagger toward the Rift. He turned away and shook his head. He had never felt so much chaos power before, not even in Hidden Palace.

He tried to clean the conduits that rose from the Rift, but his attention kept wandering back down into it. Dusk had the same problem. She clung to the scaffolding grimly, but she, too, kept looking down. Zan seemed unaffected, and whistled while he worked on the crystal array at the top of the conduit. Maybe it had something to do with a person's number of tails, Tails thought. Maybe it was also why Tails and Dusk were Zan's only assistants.

By the time Zan proclaimed them finished, Tails and Dusk were bewildered and half-sick. They staggered back to their little apartment, poked at the food left for them, and fell into their beds. This time Dusk stayed in her own bed all night, and slept without moving. Tails slept restlessly. The Rift kept creeping into his dreams, always accompanied by that fake fox-doll. It was trying to tell him something, but the Rift kept distracting Tails, so he never knew what the doll was trying to say ...

He awoke at four in the morning and lay staring at the dim ceiling. "A shield to keep out enemies," Zan's voice kept saying in his head. "Kitsunes can pass through the shield, but no one else."

Tails had a crazy urge to find the shield while everyone was asleep, sneak outside and see these enemies the kitsunes feared. The urge was somehow connected to his dreams of the Rift and the fox-doll, but he didn't bother to figure it out. He rose stealthily, pulled on his shoes, and slipped outside.

The sky was dark and studded with stars, and the streetlamps were lit all along the streets and on the doorways of the buildings. It was silent and empty, everyone asleep. He hurried north, in the direction of the Rift. It was near the shield, after all.

He turned west a few blocks short of the Rift. He had no desire to see it again, and he was beginning to wake up more and wonder what he was doing. He had to find the shield before his common sense caught up to him.

The street ended in a dead end, with a low stone wall across it. Beyond it shimmered the faint yellow of the shield, visible in the darkness as a faint film of light. Tails followed it with his eyes. It did, indeed, make a dome over the city, as far as he could see. Some of the city lights reflected in it like water.

He climbed over the wall and looked furtively over his shoulder. The street was empty and quiet. He stepped up to the shield and stretched out a hand. It passed through the shield like water, and he felt a brief coldness on his hand and arm. He ducked his head and pushed the rest of the way through. Then he was outside the shield and the kitsune city.

The air was cooler, he noticed. Still not cold enough for fall in the mountains this far north, though. It was much darker, too, as the light from Azul seemed to stop with the shield. He closed his eyes for ten seconds, then opened them again, trying to regain his night vision. The sky was slightly lighter than the mountains, and he thought he could make out trees nearby.

As he stood there shivering, wondering what had possessed him to get out of his warm bed at four in the morning, he sensed movement in the dark mass of trees. He stared toward it, but saw nothing. He looked off to one side, using his peripheral vision instead, which sometimes worked better in the dark. There was something there, lighter than the trees. It moved.

Someone grabbed Tails by the arm and yanked him back through the shield. As Tails fell backward, he saw something very large strike the shield. Something with long teeth that gleamed like daggers. Tails lay there and stared in horror as the thing opened jaws large enough to swallow him whole and snapped at the shield, then retreated into the darkness outside.

He scrambled to his feet. Beside him was an orange fox the same age as himself, with only one tail. He stared at Tails, panting, then pointed at the shield and shook his head.

"No kidding," Tails whispered. "I won't do that again." He leaped over the wall and fled back to his rooms. He buried himself under the blankets before he realized that he hadn't even told the strange fox thank you.

* * *

Later that day, near noon, the Tornado left West Mobius and headed for the uncharted wasteland of North Mobius. The ocean looked like a smooth blue floor at this altitude, and the continent in the distance looked blue and faint, like clouds on the horizon.

"I hope this doesn't take too long," said Sally. She sat in her seat with her knees doubled up, because of the two fuel cans jammed into the floorwell in front of her.

"Estimated arrival time: three hours," said the Tornado.

"Sorry, Sal," said Sonic, glancing over his shoulder apologetically. "There wasn't anywhere else to put it, and we've got to have the fuel."

"I know," Sally sighed. She opened up Nicole and loaded a card game, balancing the laptop on her knees. They had left the last transmitter for the wireless network behind them on West Mobius, and Sally could no longer communicate with her office.

Sonic tracked Slasher's communicator signal. She was far behind them, about halfway up the coast. She was making good time, but no one could compete with an airplane. Especially one that was half-jet, like the Tornado. He switched on his own communicator and waited for her to pick up. In a moment the light switched from red to green, and Sonic said, "Hi Slash."

"Hello Sonic," said Slasher through the muffled roaring of wind over the speaker. "Where are you?"

"Just left the continent," said Sonic. "Heading for the place where the ocean runs off the edge of the world."

"Make sure to get pictures," said Slasher. "Seriously, though. How soon until you land?"

"The Tornado says three hours," said Sonic.

"I'll land in ... let's see, where am I? ... in Mantis. You know where that is?"

"Flew over it," said Sonic, checking the map on the Tornado's screen. "Okay, I'll catch you there. You going to wait outside somewhere, or will you be having a sandwich or something?"

"I don't know, I haven't been there," said Slasher. "Just call when you get there, I'll let you know where I am."

"All right, see you in three hours," said Sonic, and hung up. "Provided we find somewhere to land," he muttered. "I can just see trying to land and tearing off the wings ..."

"When we come within range, I will scan for likely landing areas," said the Tornado.

Sonic played games against the Tornado as the time crept by. Sally asked the Tornado if she could hook Nicole to its network, then she and Sonic played against each other. That was more fun, because they were an even match.

The ocean slid by below, and the mountains in the distance grew and took on color and shape. Sonic was surprised to see that although the mountains had snow on them, there were also deep valleys between them with green grass and bushes, strung with blue rivers.

"Nice to see that it's not completely snow-locked," said Sally, leaning back and trying to shift her legs to some other position.

"Gosh, it looks like people could actually live up here," said Sonic, peering out the window and fogging it with his breath. "How close are we, Tornado?"

"Thirty minutes," said the Tornado. "Beginning terrain scan."

"Look, that must be it," said Sally, pointing ahead and to the left. Sonic looked.

In the distance, the mountains rose in a mass, as if gathering ranks to protect the valley in their midst. From this height it looked blue and misty, but as they drew closer, the mist became greener. A faint cloud of vapor hung over it.

"Spectral scans indicate the valley is nearly eighty degrees warmer than the surrounding mountains," said the Tornado. "Hypothesis: warmth indicates possible volcanic activity, such as hotsprings."

"Have you found a landing spot yet?" asked Sally.

"I have discovered three possible sites," said the Tornado. "A visual inspection is necessary to confirm the scans."

Sonic and Sally watched the valley grow larger and clearer, growing jittery and excited. They might crash, or they might only land in a strange, unexplored valley and confront who knows what people who had kidnapped Tails. Kitsunes? Dinosaurs? Or both?

They passed over the tops of the mountains and swooped down into the valley. It was far larger than it had looked from a distance: it was hundreds of miles long. The valley floor was dense with vegetation, and rivers gleamed up at them as they flew over.

"Sonic, what's that?" asked Sally, pointing to the left. "Is that the city?"

Sonic looked. In the distance he saw the square shapes of buildings, but a domed shield shimmered over the top of it. "Tornado, is that the population center?"

"Affirmative," said the Tornado. "I do not advise flying any closer, however, or our presence will be detected."

"C'mon, you can fly a little closer than this," said Sonic. "We're like, what, fifty miles away?"

"Twenty," said the Tornado. "We are passing over one of the likely landing areas now."

Sonic and Sally tried to see, but looking straight down from an aircraft was impossible.

"Scan complete," said the Tornado. "Results: too small."

The city grew larger and clearer, and so did the shield. "I wonder why these weird civilizations always have shields?" said Sonic, drumming his fingers on the seat. "Where do they get the energy?"

"They're probably tapped into geothermal power," said Sally. "Did you notice the shape of the mountains? This whole place is a caldera, and it must not be entirely dormant to still be so warm."

"Maybe that's how they got the power for the teleport," said Sonic with a shrug. "Tornado, can you detect Tails?"

The Tornado scanned. "The city's shield negates my instruments, Sonic. There are many lifeforms inside, but I cannot track them individually."

"I guess we'd better find a place to land, then," said Sonic.

"Affirmative," said the Tornado. "I am detecting high concentrations of--"

Its voice cut off. So did the engines. It suddenly went very quiet in the cockpit, except for the roar of wind outside the plane.

Sonic grabbed the flightstick and flipped the switches to turn over the engine. Nothing happened. "Tornado!" he yelled. "Tornado, respond!"

Still nothing. The plane began to drift downward slowly, lazily. Sonic pulled back on the flightstick to keep the nose level. "Sal, I can't land without power!"

"See if you can head west up the valley," said Sally, whipping Nicole open. "I think I can do a limited scan and find a landing spot."

Sonic turned the flightstick, biting his lip. The Tornado was still losing altitude. As they came about, a headwind caught them and Sonic was able to regain about a hundred feet.

"There's a place about two miles up the valley," said Sally, frantically typing in commands to start another scan.

Sonic peered out the windows, but he couldn't tell if there was an opening in the trees below them or not. It looked like a solid mat of green underneath them. He had a vivid vision of crashing into that green mat, the branches tearing the wings off, flipping the plane over and over, shattering the cockpit ...

He tried in vain to start the engine, but the plane was completely dead. He held it steady, watching his altimeter slowly drop.

"Sonic," said Sally in a soft, even voice, "do you have your chaos emerald?"

"It's in the bag under my seat," said Sonic, matching her tone. It was the tone one used when keeping panic under strict control.

"Better get it out," said Sally.

Sonic reached under his seat with one hand, pulled out his backpack, and found the side pocket by touch. He unzipped it and pulled out the glowing green gem, and set it in his lap so it wouldn't touch any part of the Tornado's frame.

In the distance the trees broke apart. "Is that a field?" asked Sonic, squinting.

"Some kind of meadow," said Sally. "Nicole shows it being pretty flat, and it's five hundred yards long. We should be able to land there."

Sonic wanted to bail out right then and there and leave the Tornado to its fate. But no, he had to try to save it. The Tornado's nanite brain was technically alive, and Sonic couldn't just abandon it to die. He wished Sally could get clear somehow, though.

Sonic let the plane settle downward and felt their speed decrease. The roaring wind outside dropped a little. They coasted toward the meadow.

"I can't even deploy the landing gear," said Sonic.

Sally didn't answer. She had nothing to say.

The trees below them vanished, and they were over bare earth and grass. Sonic clenched his teeth, angled the flaps, and let the plane down.

The underbelly touched the ground with a horrible scraping sound--the plane bounced, skidded sideways, rocked up on its nose, and flipped upside down. It skidded twenty more feet, ploughing up the earth, then finally stopped.

Then it was silent.


	4. Chapter 4

Sonic cautiously opened his eyes. He was hanging upside down from his seat belt, and the chaos emerald lay on the canopy beside his head. He picked it up and said, "Sally? Are you okay?"

"Yes," she said shakily. "I'm holding the fuel cans up with my feet, so I can't move."

Sonic unlatched the canopy underneath and tried to slide it open. But this was impossible with the full weight of the plane on it. Sonic turned the chaos emerald so its point faced outward, and smashed out a side window. Then he unbuckled himself and crawled out.

The plane's undercarriage was intact, as far as he could see. Most of the paint was gone, but the fuselage had not torn. Sonic crawled under the wing to break open Sally's window.

Freeing her was tricky, as they also had to free the fuel cans, but ten minutes later Sally sat on the grass beside the Tornado, rubbing her arms and legs. Neither of them were seriously hurt, beyond some painful bruises.

"I'm gonna teleport back and pick up Slasher," said Sonic. "She can help us turn the plane back over. I'll put my emerald in the power converter and see if we can get it to come on that way."

Sally nodded. "I'll just sit here until you get back. I thought we were going to die."

"Me too." Sonic kissed the top of her head and teleported in a flash of light.

Sally sat in the sunlight and looked around her. She felt as if a mist clouded her senses, and recognized it as shock. The best thing was just to stay still and rest. She watched as three large white birds flew overhead and landed far out in the meadow, where they walked around on long legs. Birds sang from the trees all around--strange, shrill songs that Sally had never heard.

Something made her look over her shoulder.

Fifty feet away stood a dinosaur. A very large dinosaur on two legs, with small forearms and a big head with lots of teeth. A tyrannosaurus?

It had been in the process of taking a stealthy step toward her. When she met its eyes, it froze. They stared at each other. Then it lifted one foot, moved it forward, and delicately set it down. Then the other foot.

Sally rose to her feet and walked around to the far side of the Tornado, putting it between her and the dinosaur. The tyrannosaur was so much larger than both her and the plane that this didn't feel like much protection. When she looked at the dinosaur again, it had taken five or six strides toward her, but when she looked at it, it again slowed to slow, sneaky footsteps.

Where was her laser pistol? She knew she had packed it. She fumbled at the cargo compartment. There was a catch to it around here somewhere--

The dinosaur charged. Sally ducked under the wing as its jaws snapped where her head had been. The tyrannosaur rested one foot on the Tornado's belly and leaned over it, trying to reach Sally under the wing. "Get away!" she shrieked, crawling backwards. Why didn't Sonic and Slasher come back? Why didn't somebody help her?

The dinosaur reached under the wing with open jaws. Sally kicked it between the nostrils, and it pulled its head out for a second. Then it lunged under the wing, snapping.

Sally tumbled out from under the other side of the wing, looking for a stick, a rock, anything to use as a weapon. But she had nothing.

A dog barked somewhere nearby. The tyrannosaur's head turned, and it made a high-pitched whistle. The bark came again, and Sally realized that it was not a dog. It was more like the sound Slasher made when she was calling someone.

She heard running footsteps, and around the side of the plane came a velociraptor the size of Slasher, but instead of having brown-toned skin, this one was coal black with white markings. He took one sniff at Sally, then barked at the tyrannosaur again. This close it was deafening.

The tyrannosaur grumbled, took its foot off the Tornado, and shuffled away toward the trees.

The raptor looked at Sally, held out a hand and said, "Did he hurt you?"

"No," said Sally, taking the raptor's hand. Her knees were weak as she stood up. "Are you going to try to eat me, too?"

"Not unless you're a kitsune," said the raptor. "You don't have the tails."

"No, I'm a squirrel," said Sally.

The raptor nodded. His eyes were sky blue, she noticed. "I saw your machine crash. I knew you couldn't be from the City, because they don't use machines." As he spoke, his nostrils worked, taking in her scent. "There was another with you, a blue spiky creature. Why did he not aid you?"

"He's finding a friend of ours," said Sally, leaning against the plane. "He's bringing her back right now."

"Yes." The black raptor reared up and looked all around the meadow, giving Sally a good look at the white stripes on his belly. They were not stripes, she realized. They were deep, ugly scars that stood up in ridges. The mist over her eyes and ears seemed to thicken. She just wanted to lie down and sleep, but it was far too dangerous. There was no reason to trust this strange dinosaur, even if he had chased off the tyrannosaur.

"Why did you chase off the big one?" she asked.

"The allosaurus?" said the raptor. "Because I knew that you were not a kitsune. They're not very smart, you know. He would have eaten you and realized his mistake later. By the way, my name is Carya."

"I'm Sally," said Sally. "Thank you for saving me."

This seemed to surprise Carya. He cocked his head and studied her with one eye, and his tail swayed from side to side. "You're polite, too! I didn't expect that. Kitsunes are never polite. What brings you here, anyway?"

"A friend of ours was kidnapped and taken to that city," said Sally. "We've come to rescue him. He's a kitsune, but he's like us. He built this airplane, here."

Carya clicked his teeth together, danced in place and shook himself. "I do not like this news," he said. "A kitsune who can build machines? That is impossible. They cannot touch machines without destroying them. Was your friend quite young still? Perhaps only one tail?"

"He has two," said Sally, watching Carya's odd behavior.

He calmed down and stood still. "Then that is not so strange. It is when they possess six or more tails that they pose a serious threat."

There was a sudden flash of green light, and Sonic and Slasher materialized a few feet away.

The two of them stared at the black raptor standing over Sally, and their eyes widened in horror. Then Slasher leaped at the black raptor with a savage hiss.

Carya leaped backwards, and Slasher stood over Sally, mantling her with her wings. She snarled, head hanging low. "Slasher, it's okay," said Sally. "He saved me from an allosaurus."

Slasher did not move or sheath her fangs. She growled something in the raptor language. Carya replied in a series of chirps. He did not lower his head or make any other motion to defend himself if Slasher should attack him.

The dinosaurs spoke like this for several minutes, and Slasher gradually relaxed. She stopped snarling, rose from her protective crouch, and folded her wings.

"Is it okay, then?" asked Sonic.

"Yes," said Slasher. "He has also agreed to help us turn the plane over."

Sally had no strength left. She simply sat on the grass as the two dinosaurs and Sonic heaved and tugged at the Tornado until they managed to flip it back onto its belly. Its nose was packed with dirt, and Sonic inspected it. "Aw man! I'll have to clean all this out before I can even reach the thing to open the compartment."

"We can assist you," said Carya. "There are many of us who love machines. But first, please come back to our den. Sally smells of the illness that comes after much fear, and so do you, blue creature."

"I'm Sonic the Hedgehog," said Sonic. "What do you mean, illness that comes after fear?"

"He means shock," said Slasher. "He's not very good at New Mobian, he says."

"Oh," said Sonic. "I guess I sort of am."

"Since I'm the only well one, you two can ride," said Slasher. "I don't think Sally could walk very far anyway."

She crouched down, and Sonic helped Sally climb onto Slasher's back, between her wings. Then Sonic hauled their backpacks out of the Tornado's cockpit, slung them over his shoulders, and climbed on behind Sally.

"You always carry others in such a way?" asked Carya.

"Yes," said Slasher, flashing her teeth at him. "You have a problem with that?"

"No, no," said Carya, and kept further comments to himself. He set off at a trot eastward, and Slasher followed him.

* * *

Tails slept in until almost ten o'clock. When he finally sat up and rubbed his bleary eyes, he was unsurprised to see that Dusk's bed was empty.

He got up, pulled on his shoes, and thought about his early morning adventure. It seemed like a dream now. What had that thing been that had tried to eat him? A dragon?

He padded into the living room and looked around for Dusk. There was no sign of her. Maybe she had gone out to the crystal conduits for something to do. This morning he had been provided cereal for breakfast, so he poured himself some and sleepily munched his way through it.

He had finished and was washing out his bowl when the front door opened. He turned to see a guard hold it open for Dusk, who crept inside, her arms wrapped tightly around herself. When she saw Tails, she ran to him, hugged him around the waist and buried her face against his side.

"Whoa, what's wrong?" he asked. "Where have you been?"

"The bad kitsune with the white eyes," she whispered. "He asked me more questions."

"Oh no," Tails muttered. He crouched down and hugged her. "Did he hurt you?"

"No," she whimpered. "But he made scary things in the room. I knew they weren't real, but ... but ... but ..."

Tails just held her while she sniffled.

Dusk burst out, "He must be a really wicked person to be able to paint illusions like that!"

Tails suddenly understood something about kitsunes and their illusions. The sorts of things they manifested must be a reflection of the content of their hearts. Suddenly that white-eyed kitsune took on a new layer of horror.

"Can we run away?" Dusk whispered.

"There's things out there that eat kitsunes," said Tails. "I tried it this morning. It's why I slept in."

Dusk gave him a sad look and continued to cling to him. Tails held her a moment longer, then said, "Did you have breakfast? It's not half bad."

She allowed him to feed her, but she kept very close to him. Later on, as they set out for the crystal conduits, she kept so close that she kept bumping into him.

They arrived at the Chaos Rift and looked around the row of crystal conduits for Foreman Zan, but there was no sign of him. "We must be too early," said Tails. "C'mon, lets find the tools and get started."

But they couldn't find the tools, either. The night before, Zan had locked them in a toolbox at the far end of the row of conduits, but he must have taken the toolbox with him. Tails and Dusk looked around for a few minutes, Dusk holding Tails's hand with her thumb in her mouth. Tails was about to suggest going home when Dusk's ears stood straight up. "Somebody's coming," she whispered. "They're illusioned so you can't see them."

"What do we do?" whispered Tails, freezing in place and following Dusk's gaze. She was looking at the road from the city, and it looked empty to him.

"Over here," she whispered, pulling him back behind a ladder. They both crouched down, and Dusk painted an illusion over them.

It was the first kitsune illusion that Tails had ever seen. A cylinder of color wrapped around them, looking exactly like the space behind the ladder without two foxes in it. Looking through it was like looking through a sheer curtain, and it acted like a filter, letting him see through the oncoming kitsune's illusion.

It looked like the kitsune was wearing a flowing sheet from head to toe that reflected its surroundings. Under its illusion was a tall female with cherry red fur and a fan of tails drifting behind her. She wore high-heeled boots and a thick gold necklace, but no uniform or other means of identification.

"Who's that?" Tails whispered.

"I don't know," Dusk whispered back.

They watched in silence as the red kitsune walked to the edge of the Chaos Rift and stretched her arms above her head. Her illusion fell away as she looked around, making sure she was alone. Tails quivered as her eyes passed over them, but Dusk's illusion must have been very powerful, for the red kitsune missed them.

Then the kitsune jumped into the Rift.

Tails and Dusk stared at the point where she had disappeared, and saw motes of light floating upward. The chaos charge in the air increased, making their fur rise and crackle. Tails placed both hands on the ground, then realized that he couldn't ground chaos energy like electricity. He looked at Dusk and saw that she was staring into space with a blank expression, holding the illusion in place.

Tails looked toward the Rift again, just in time to see the strange kitsune float out of it. She glowed a soft gold now, like Super Sonic, but her eyes were closed and her head tilted back, as if enjoying a warm shower. She floated there for a moment, then opened her eyes, drifted forward to the edge of the road, and let herself sink to the ground, her golden glow fading back to red. She wound her invisibility illusion around herself again like a cloak, and walked off the direction she had come.

When she was out of sight, Dusk let their illusion fade away, and they stood up. The chaos charge was slowly dwindling, but Tails's fur still stood up. Or was that because of the weirdness of what he had just witnessed?

"Was she, like, bathing in the Chaos Rift?" he asked Dusk.

She shrugged.

"Well, you wouldn't get me to do that," said Tails with a shudder.

* * *

Sally awoke to the sound of voices talking, and the thick odor of reptile.

She opened her eyes. She lay on a pile of dried grass that rustled when she moved. Sitting beside her was Sonic, his back to her, facing out into the cave protectively. The cave itself was about as large as Sally's hut back home, and was lit by four flickering torches. A short distance away sat a number of dinosaurs, some resting on their bellies, others seated on their haunches like dogs. Slasher was among them, her wings making her profile bulkier than the others.

The dinosaurs were talking in their language, which sounded like chirps, whistles and barks. It was like a zoo at feeding time. Once in a while they lapsed into New Mobian, and Sally distinguished a few words she knew.

As she sat up, Sonic looked at her over his shoulder. "Oh good, you're awake. You've been out for three hours."

"I feel better," she said, rubbing her head. The misty feeling had left her head, and now she was thirsty. And she felt sore from the crash. She gingerly crawled forward to sit beside Sonic. "What are they talking about?"

"I wish I understood them better," said Sonic. "Slasher talks the most New Mobian of all of them, I think because the dinosaurs don't have words for what she needs to say. From what I've gathered, the dinosaurs are at war with the kitsunes. They think we'll help them win."

"Why are they at war?" asked Sally. "We're miles away from the kitsune city place."

"I don't know," said Sonic. "Whenever they mention the kitsunes, they all growl. It's the scariest thing you've ever heard."

Sally squinted at the dinosaurs, trying to figure out their species. The raptors were the largest species present, and there were four of them, including Slasher. Mixed in among them were several small dinosaurs with round heads, long hind legs and short forearms. The most interesting thing about them was their colors; every color of the rainbow in shimmering iridescence, like a hummingbird's throat. There was one dinosaur that had a long, snake-like body and head, and he sat coiled in on himself like a snake.

"Do you know what kinds of dinosaurs they are?" Sally whispered in Sonic's ear.

"No idea," said Sonic. "I know the raptors, and I think they're a different kind than the Flicky Island ones. Look how huge they are."

One of the small iridescent dinosaurs noticed them. It rose to its feet and hopped up to them like a kangaroo. Its skin gleamed green with red and blue splashes along its sides and face. "Hello," it said. "It is nice to see you both awake. Do you need anything?"

"I'm thirsty," said Sally, resisting the urge to reach out and stroke the creature's head.

"I'll be right back," said the little dinosaur, and hopped away out of the cave.

One of the raptors noticed it go, and turned his head. It was the black raptor Carya. He rose from his seat in the group, walked up to them, and seated himself on his haunches in front of them, his long tail reaching all the way back to the other dinosaurs. "Hello Sonic Hedgehog and Sally," he said gravely. "Your companion Slasher has told us much about you, and she disagrees with us. She says that our dealings with the kitsune nation are barbaric."

"I figured out that you guys are at war with them," said Sonic, "but I don't know why. I don't know your language."

Carya nodded. "It is a long tale. We lived in this valley for many many generations. It was ours and none disputed us. We established trade routes with other nations and we were civilized. We have fire and tools and a written language. We build machines. Then the kitsunes came. They tried to drive us from the valley and slaughtered us like beasts. We tried to negotiate with them, but they killed our representatives. So we fought back. Since they showed us no mercy, we showed them no mercy. We trained our allosaurs to eat them on sight. We attacked their city by night, the way they had attacked our homes.

"Then they used the Weapon on us."

Carya paused and bowed his head.

Sonic and Sally exchanged horrified looks. "What kind of weapon?" asked Sally.

Carya lifted his head. "We still do not know. I was not hatched then, but the elders speak of a great flash of light, and a wind that flattened the trees, and a fire that burned wood and stone. Nine-tenths of our people died. The survivors fled to these caves, and we have lived here ever since, deep underground, where another Weapon cannot touch us."

Bitterness crept into his voice as he continued, "The kitsunes raised the shield over their city at the same time. We have not been able to touch them since, so we keep their city under siege. If one steps outside the shield, we devour them. What more can we do? We lack the weapons to penetrate such a shield or kill on such a large scale."

Sonic and Sally looked at each other again. "Nuked 'em," muttered Sonic. To Carya he said, "So what's Slasher disagree with?"

"She says that we should continue negotiations with them," said Carya, shaking his head. "She says that our siege has not hurt them at all, because they have ways of jumping in and out of the city without leaving the shield. She also wants our assistance in rescuing the kitsune they took from you."

He looked over his shoulder at the group just as they all growled and showed their teeth. "It is not going well."

The little iridescent dinosaur returned with a large leaf folded into a cup, splashing a little water out of it with every hop. It handed the leaf to Sally and smiled. She smiled back and took a sip. It seemed clean enough.

"So just take us to the city and we'll sneak inside," said Sonic. "It can't be that hard. What's the shield made of?"

Carya waved a claw at Sonic's backpack. "The same power that is inside your gem."

"Chaos energy?" Sonic laughed. "I thought it'd be something weirder! Sure we can get through that. You just can't eat Tails when we bring him out."

"Tails?" It was Carya's turn to laugh. "You call your kitsune friend Tails?"

"Yeah," said Sonic. "What's wrong with that?"

"Oh, nothing," said Carya, quickly trying to stop smiling. "Just that the title applies to all of them."

Sally felt better after her drink, and stood up, brushing blades of grass off her fur. "What time is it, anyway? We might be able to go before dark."

Sonic held up his wrist, displaying his watch. "This far north, at this time of year, the sun sets at three o'clock, Sal. It's already dark out."

"Oh," she said, disappointed. "Well, we could go anyway."

"Please stay the night here," said Carya, sitting up straighter and looking worried. "The large predators hunt by night, and it is nearly a hundred miles to the City. We may be allied with the predators, but there are rules about leaving the caves after nightfall."

"Like, go outside and you're legally lunch?" said Sonic.

"Something like that," said Carya.

Sally sighed. "Well, can you show us where we're going to stay?"

Carya turned his head and gazed toward the other dinosaurs. Slasher was watching them over her shoulder with one green eye. "With all due respect," he said, "Slasher requested that you remain within her presence until the conference ends."

Slasher flashed her fangs at Carya to show she had heard.

"Why does she hate you so much?" asked Sally.

Carya grinned foolishly, closing his third eyelid for a second. "Oh, she does not dislike me in particular. It is the males of my pack. There are too many of us, you see."

"Oh," said Sonic, raising his eyebrows. "So, she's like hot stuff?"

Carya nodded, still grinning.

"What about her wings?" asked Sally. "The last dinosaurs we met thought she was a freak."

Carya glanced at Slasher and quickly looked away. "Let me ask Sonic a question. If your friend Sally suddenly appeared with wings, how would you react?"

Sonic looked at Sally, and smiled in sudden understanding. "I think I'd ... kind of ... like it."

Sally blushed and giggled, and Carya said, "That's our reaction."

* * *

As night fell on the Floating Island, Zephyer went looking for Knuckles.

She had finally rocked Simoon to sleep, put Talon and the chao to bed, and wanted to spend time with her husband for once. But Knuckles was not in the house.

She checked all the rooms, and finally walked out to the big teleporter by the road to see if it had been used recently. Sometimes the glow in the lens lingered for hours, and was especially visible at night.

The wide blue lens was indeed still faintly lit, and by its light, the echidna saw that its destination setting had been altered. She squinted at it, but she didn't understand the ancient coordinate markings as well as Knuckles did. The only way to find out where the teleporter was aimed was to take it there. She stepped on the lens.

It lit with blue chaos energy. The yard and houses vanished, and cave walls appeared in their place. Zephyer stood on the receiver plate as the light died out of the lens, and looked around. She had never seen this cave before, but there were hundreds of caves on the Floating Island and Knuckles knew most of them.

As her eyes adjusted to the dim light, she saw that the cave was actually the end of a passage. There was a hallway to her left, and the walls reflected a dim yellow light. She turned and walked down it, listening. The hallway was fifty feet long, and there was a brightly-lit room at the end. As she drew closer, she heard the metallic clanking of tools, and Knuckles talking to himself under his breath.

"Knuckles?" she called, not wanting to sneak up on him.

The clanking and muttering fell silent, and Knuckles leaned into view and looked down the passage. "Oh, hi Zeff. What're you doing here?"

"I came to find you," she said, stepping into the room with him. "I finally got the kids to bed and I missed you." She looked around. "What in the world is all this?"

It was a good-sized cave, slightly smaller than their house. Workbenches stood around the walls, covered with tools, crystals, torches, and construction supplies. Hanging from the ceiling in the center was a strange machine. It looked like a small, dim lightbulb with a lot of arms and wires attached to it.

Knuckles looked at it sheepishly. "Oh, it's just sort of ... that project I've been working on."

Zephyer walked around the machine, careful not to touch it. "Is this the chaos engine?"

"Yeah." Knuckles walked up and stood beside her. His gloves were off and his fingers were smudged with grease, she noticed. "It works pretty well, as long as you keep the power level below twenty thousand jems. It shorts out after that. I've been hooking up some defensive mechanisms."

"Like what?" asked Zephyer, noticing the cables that ran into the ceiling and walls.

Knuckles picked up a rag and wiped his hands. "We need more firepower when the kitsunes come back. I've been reading about them, and you can't believe the stuff they can do. Imagine a thousand Super Sonics coming to wipe you out."

Zephyer shuddered.

"Yeah," said Knuckles, nodding and making his dreadlocks swing. "So I'm hooking up my engine to the Master Emerald. When I activate the engines, they power up several energy emitters up in the mountains. It forms a vortex, so if you're using chaos energy, you have to go there no matter what. And then ..." He smacked a fist into a palm.

"So, what do we do when that happens?" Zephyer asked. "I mean, there might not be enough time to round everybody up and get them underground."

"I'm working on that," said Knuckles. "I'm digging a tunnel under the house to the nearest cave, about two hundred feet down. I have to go slow so I don't collapse the foundations."

Zephyer looked at the chaos engine, then at Knuckles, whose eyes were shining with pride in his machine and anticipation of a good fight. She sighed. "I don't know what I'm going to do with you."

He grinned mischievously. "What? Don't you approve of me defending our island?"

She put her arms around his neck. "No, I don't approve of how much you enjoy it."

He laughed and kissed her.

* * *

As Tails and Dusk worked on cleaning the crystal conduits, Tails thought hard about Dusk being taken away for questioning.

She was too young for such things, and he was afraid that they might hurt her next time, maybe try breaking her mind or something. He had no idea what the kitsunes could do.

But he wasn't afraid to be questioned. Seeing through the illusion that morning had taken away its terror. Sure, he might not be able to tell the difference between reality and illusion, but the illusion was made of light and cobwebs. He felt that if they tried to scare him now, he would laugh in their faces.

As he worked, scrubbing dust and flakes of crystal off the conduits, a plan began to form in his head.

The foreman let them go at sunset, and Dusk and Tails went back to their apartment, where a plate of sandwiches awaited them.

"Dusk," said Tails once they were eating, "what time did they come take you this morning?"

"It was still dark," said Dusk in a small voice.

Very early in the morning. They had wanted her alone.

"Did they just come in, or did they knock?"

"They knocked," said Dusk. "You were asleep, so I answered it. They just wanted me."

Tails chewed and pondered. His plan hinged on one key point, and Dusk was crucial. "Dusk," he said, "I have an idea. But you have to help me."

She looked at him and her ears pricked up.

"Tomorrow morning we'll get up really early," said Tails. "I'll illusion myself to look like you, and you illusion yourself to look like me. That way, if they come for you again, they'll take me instead."

Her eyes lit up, and she nodded. Then she frowned. "What if they hurt you?"

"Better me than you," said Tails. "The problem is, I have no idea how to make illusions."

They ate in silence for a moment, gazing thoughtfully at each other. Then Dusk said, "You have to make me want to see something. Look at your sandwich and think, 'Make her see a banana.'"

Tails looked at his half-eaten sandwich and thought hard, "Make Dusk see a banana here." When nothing happened, he imagined a banana in his head--long and curved, yellow, brown spots, brown on the stem ...

A ghostly banana appeared in his hand, superimposed over his sandwich. Tails jumped and nearly dropped it. Then he held it out and grinned.

Dusk looked at it and squinted. "You really suck at illusions." As she gazed at the banana, it became solid in his hand. Tails could see the light reflecting dimly in its skin. He reached out to touch it, but his finger passed through it and touched the sandwich behind the image. Then Dusk stopped projecting, and the banana returned to a ghostly hologram.

"You have to think of a real banana," she said. "Not a picture of one."

Tails concentrated fiercely. The trouble was that he knew he was making an illusion, and he kept trying to project a really good illusion. Dusk showed him over and over that he couldn't just show someone a picture of something. He had to show them the real thing.

An hour passed, then two. Tails ate the rest of his sandwich and switched to trying to illusion a pencil. Sometimes the illusion was nearly solid, and sometimes it was the barest shadow of an image. "Is it because I only have two tails?" he asked in frustration.

"I don't think so," said Dusk, who was stretched out on her belly on the counter, propped up on her elbows. "You've just never done it."

Tails finally started trying to make himself look like Dusk. This sent Dusk into fits of giggles, which startled Tails. He had never heard her laugh before. He had the same problem. He could overlay an accurate image of Dusk over himself, but they could both see through it.

"Watch," she said, sitting up. "I'm going to make myself into you. Not a picture of you. I'm turning into you." And she changed into an exact copy of Tails, with orange fur and two tails. Then she let the illusion fade and returned to her black-furred self.

"Oh," said Tails. "So I have to really actually turn myself into you." He pushed the illusion around himself, and this time saw it as a gossamer curtain.

Dusk clapped. "It's solid this time! You did it!"

"Can you still see through it?" Tails asked.

Dusk nodded. "But I can see through everybody's illusions. I've always been able to."

Tails practiced switching it on and off, and tried making objects into other things. Now that he thought of it as an actual transformation, his illusions were solid and convincing.

Dusk took Tails's bed that night, and he took her bed. "If they knock, wake me up," he told her.

She nodded, stuck her thumb in her mouth, and burrowed under the blankets. Tails lay awake for a while, giddy over his newfound ability, and wondering what would happen in the morning.


	5. Chapter 5

Sonic awoke at dawn the next morning. He had slept on a bed of grass, snuggled under Slasher's left wing. Sally had slept under Slasher's right wing, and Slasher did not appear to have slept at all.

When Sonic stirred and pushed back her feathers, Slasher tilted her head and looked at him with one eye. They had already turned a yellowish green, he noticed. He had forgotten that the ferocity of a raptor matched the color of its eyes, and Slasher's eyes tended to go yellow when around other dinosaurs. He thought of Carya's blue eyes and wondered what blue meant.

"Hi Slash," he whispered. "Sleep much?"

"A little," she whispered back. "No one bothered us, although since it got light, there's been a steady procession of males past the cave entrance, waiting for me to come out."

Sonic stood up, stretched his arms above his head, and began his morning warm-up exercises. "You like any of them?"

"At the moment I'd like to mutilate them all in creative ways," said Slasher with a growl. "We're going to the kitsune city today, and they are not allowed to escort us."

Sally crawled out from under Slasher's other wing with a rustle of grass and feathers. "Talk a little louder, why don't you?"

"Sorry Sal," said Sonic, touching his toes. "I'm glad they let us have this cave. We can get out in a hurry."

It was a shallow cave in the outer cliff wall, and the entrance opened out into a grove of trees. The morning light illuminated the cave without resorting to smoky torches.

Sally picked up her backpack where it rested against the wall, dug through it, and pulled out a hairbrush. She groomed herself all over while Sonic finished his warm-ups. Then Sonic grabbed his own backpack and began pulling out food. "I don't suppose they plan to feed us while we're here?"

"Their culinary skills wouldn't win many awards," said Slasher. "Better stick with the stuff you brought."

"What, would they give us toasted apatosaurus or something?" asked Sally, brushing her arms.

"Probably," said Slasher. "They didn't tell me what species I ate last night, but it was disgusting." She stood up, stretched her back legs, and one wing at a time. "What I wouldn't give for some toast right now. I've gotten used to a civilized diet."

They breakfasted on dried fruit, bread and slabs of cheese broken off the main lump, because Sonic had forgotten to pack a knife. Afterwards they felt ready to take on anything. "Okay!" said Sonic. "Let's go save Tails!" He dug his green chaos emerald out of his backpack and tossed it up and down as they walked out of the cave.

They were immediately joined by a red and yellow raptor who wore a feathered headdress that made him look even taller. "Hello," he said, walking too close to Slasher and bumping her wing with his shoulder. "I'm Rain, leader of the male pack."

Slasher bit his arm, and Rain sidestepped to a respectful distance. "Do that again and you'll lose a limb," she growled. "We're going to the kitsune city today, and you're not invited."

Rain licked his bleeding forearm and looked noncommittal.

Slasher led them out of the trees, across a wide, grassy meadow where several of the small, neon-colored dinosaurs were grazing, and up to a cave entrance wide enough to drive a truck through. To Sonic and Sally's surprise, just inside the entrance was the Tornado. It had been laid on its side on a wooden platform, and a crowd of small dinosaurs were running all over it, chittering to each other.

"Hey," said Sonic, "what're you doing to our plane?"

One of the little dinosaurs ran up and chittered at them very seriously. Instead of paws at the ends of its forearms, they saw that it had only a thick, huge claw on each arm. It looked weird, but at the same time it looked as if it belonged to the dinosaur in question.

Slasher translated. "He says that the Tornado is the most beautiful machine he has ever seen. They promise not to take it apart, but they beg permission to clean it, because the engine is full of dirt and the windows are broken."

Sonic looked at Sally. "Well," she said, "how much do they know about machines?"

Slasher translated this question, and the little dinosaur turned and called to one of its friends. The other dinosaur scampered into the cave, and returned a moment later with a square contraption with a lens at one end. The dinosaur licked the lens, and proudly displayed the box as the lens lit up.

"They have flashlights?" asked Sonic in disbelief.

Slasher listened to the chatter of the little creatures, and said, "Apparently they mine and refine metals, and understand the rudiments of electricity. They say that they used to have far better machines, but when the kitsunes blew them up they lost everything."

"Let 'em clean the Tornado," said Sonic.

At this point Carya emerged from the cave, flanked by two large, imposing looking dinosaurs with domed heads and jagged horns. "Hello," he said, walking up to them and ignoring Rain, who stood nearby, watching. "These are City guards, Butch and Flail. They will protect you as you search for a way in, and make sure that no allosaurs attack you."

The two guards walked up and stood beside them. At the same time, Sonic saw Carya and Rain lock eyes and exchange a snarl. "Okay!" said Sonic, pretending he hadn't seen anything. "Join hands, everybody." Slasher, Sally, Butch, Flail, and Sonic joined hands or rested hands on backs. Then Sonic held up his chaos emerald and said, "Chaos relocate!"

* * *

Tails awoke before daylight to Dusk's frantic tapping on his shoulder. "They're here," she whispered, and transformed into him.

Tails was wide awake at once as adrenaline jolted through him. He jumped out of bed and threw the illusion of Dusk over himself. To his nervous pleasure, he got it perfect the first time. He heard the knock at the door, made sure Dusk was disguised as him in his bed, and ran for the door.

Two kitsunes in dark suits awaited him. Tails nodded and thought to stick his thumb in his mouth, the way Dusk always did. The kitsunes made no comment, but escorted him away from the apartment and out into the street.

Tails was thankful that Dusk seldom spoke, because he doubted he could imitate her voice. He walked along, feeling apprehensive and trying to see where they were going.

They led him down a street, turned left once and right twice, and arrived at a blank stone wall. One of the kitsunes waved a hand at it, and an illusion melted away to reveal a tall golden door. They opened it and ushered Tails inside.

Inside, a flight of steps took them down underground. The steps were padded with red carpet, and the lights were actually lumps of the same golden glowing chaos crystal that Tails had cleaned every day.

The stairs ended at a hallway. The kitsunes led Tails down this hallway to another door, opened it, pushed him inside, and closed it behind him.

Tails stood in a vast room with a domed ceiling. At the far end of the room was a raised dais with a throne on it, but his attention was completely riveted by the thing in the center of the room.

It looked like a ten-foot-tall snowglobe. It had a raised base and a huge clear globe mounted on it. But the globe swirled with energy like the rainbows on a soap bubble, and inside the globe hung a white kitsune. She was curled in the fetal position, and her nine tails fanned out around her and filled the globe. At first Tails thought she was dead, then he realized her chest rose and fell steadily with her breathing. She was asleep, or in stasis.

"There sleeps the most dangerous kitsune on Mobius," said a female voice behind him.

Tails turned, and his heart leaped into his mouth. Behind him stood the red nine-tailed kitsune whom he and Dusk had seen bathing in the Chaos Rift. She was not looking at him, though. Her eyes were fixed on the globe and its occupant. "Many kitsunes lost their lives in the attempt to seal her there. I was the only one left with the power to accomplish it, and there she is. I keep her here as a testament to my p ... my services to the kitsune people." She smiled and showed too many teeth. Tails's skin crawled. He disliked her at once.

She looked at him, and her smile faded. Her eyes narrowed. "You are not Dusk. You are disguised as her."

Oh well, the jig was up. Tails let the illusion fade away, and stood up straight. "That's right. I'm Miles Prower, and I'm here because you shouldn't question Dusk anymore. She's too little."

The kitsune's face went curiously blank. "Miles ... Prower," she said. "Yes, it makes sense that you are here. How many tails do you have?"

"Two," said Tails defiantly.

The kitsune looked at him for a long moment in silence. Then she said, "Very well. I am Empress Thorn. I sent for Dusk because of her exceptional power with illusions, but I must admit, you are just as fascinating. Your parents were Amadeus and Rosemary, correct?"

Tails nodded.

"You certainly have Amadeus's guts," she said, smirking. "And at such a young age! And with only two tails! I shall have to see what you are capable of."

* * *

The rising sun tinted the city shield with shades of pink and gold. The buildings inside were shadowy and vague, like peering through one-way glass. Sonic stood looking up at it, shading his eyes. "Reminds me of the one that Rio del Fuego has," he remarked.

"Only not green," said Sally. "More yellow, it looks like."

The kitsune city was ringed with a bare strip of grass fifty feet wide, as if the kitsunes disliked trees growing too close to their shield. Outside this strip the trees grew in dense patches, and allosaurs lurked in them. When they had first appeared, an allosaur stalked out and asked what was going on. Slasher and their two guards explained the situation, and the allosaur melted back into the trees with alarming silence for a creature so large.

Sonic walked up to the shield and touched it. It was neither warm nor cool, but hard, like plastic. He pushed against it. It resisted. He backed up, curled into a spindash, and threw himself at the shield. He bounced off.

Sally touched the shield, but it resisted her, as well.

"Maybe getting in will be harder than I thought," said Sonic, standing up and scratching his head.

"Only kitsunes can pass through the shield," said Butch. "We have seen them do it. Sometimes it is the last thing they do."

Sonic tried tapping the shield with his chaos emerald, but even it could not penetrate the shield. The most it did was soften it to the consistency of rubber. Sonic could push the emerald into the shield about a foot, then the shield sprang back into place, thrusting him backwards.

Sally cupped her hands around her eyes and tried to see through the shield. It was like looking through rippling water. She made out the shapes of buildings and thought she saw people moving, but she wasn't sure.

"Well shoot," said Sonic, putting his hands on his hips. "I'm out of ideas. Hey Butch and Flail, has anybody ever gone through this shield?"

The dinosaurs side eyed each other. "Only one," said Flail.

"Who?"

"Carya." Butch and Flail shuddered. Butch said, "Ever wonder how he got those scars on his belly?"

Sonic made a face and turned to Slasher. "You want me to go back and get him?"

Slasher heaved a sigh. "You might as well, seeing as it's our only choice."

"Be back in a sec," said Sonic, and teleported.

Sally tapped on the shield and watched it ripple. Slasher stood on one foot and adjusted her wings. Butch and Flail walked off a few paces to the shade beneath a spreading tree. The minutes ticked by.

Sonic reappeared in a flash of light, accompanied by two raptors: Carya and Rain. Sonic's hand rested on Carya's arm, but Rain's claws were hooked through Sonic's quills.

Sonic twisted away from him and said, "You can't do that! You're not supposed to be here!"

"But here I am," said Rain, grinning at Slasher. He stepped around Sonic and pranced up to Slasher, stopping just out of reach. "Hey beautiful."

Slasher showed him all her teeth.

Carya, meanwhile, ignored all this and walked off a short distance. Sonic and Sally hurried after him, and Slasher followed them with Rain walking beside her, keeping away from her fangs.

"Can you get through the shield?" Sonic asked Carya.

"I did it once," said Carya quietly. "I almost died."

"Could you show us how, though?" asked Sonic.

Carya cast a wary glance over his shoulder at Rain and Slasher, just as Rain leaned close to Slasher and ran his muzzle along her wing.

This meant nothing to Sonic and Sally, but it must have been very bad to the dinosaurs. Carya, Butch and Flail all growled, and Slasher spun like lightning and knocked Rain flat with a blow from her tail. "Next time I'll tear out your throat," she snarled at him.

He grinned up at her from the ground, and scrambled to his feet as she walked away. He hurried to walk beside her again, keeping a greater distance between them this time.

Carya turned with a snort and led them at a trot northward, along the edge of the shield. "So ... how do we get through the shield?" Sonic asked again.

Carya said nothing, but Rain said, "You have to be a suicidal omega male of the pack, and be curious about what too much power does to living flesh. Isn't that right, Carya?"

Carya trotted on in silence, refusing to meet Rain's eye.

"It was three mating seasons ago, wasn't it?" Rain went on, grinning. "Carya's never been able to win a mate, so he was taking out his depression on the kitsunes. I wish I'd been there to watch him sizzle."

"Shut up," said Slasher.

"What, you're not considering him, are you?" said Rain. "He's the weakest of all the males. I'm the alpha, in case you hadn't noticed." He puffed out his chest and strutted.

"I really don't care," said Slasher. "I don't want attention from any of you, no matter your rank."

"Hard to get, isn't she, Carya?" said Rain. "I'll win in the end, though."

"Seriously, shut up," said Sonic, glaring at Rain. "I'm this close to teleporting you back right now."

"Try it, little morsel," said Rain. "You'll be without protection once we arrive."

Carya caught Butch's eye and jerked his head ever so slightly. The big guards moved up beside Rain and walked on either side of him, with Flail between Rain and Slasher. "I'm not going to eat them, I promise," said Rain. Nobody answered him.

The shield edged away on their right in a smooth curve, arching up into the blue sky. It began to dawn on Sonic and Sally just how big the kitsune city actually was. It was like walking along the outskirts of Sapphire City--miles and miles of roads and buildings.

They walked for two hours, stopping once in a while for a detour into the trees to drink from a spring or a stream. Carya seemed to know the locations of all of these, and nobody asked how. Sonic felt like he knew too much about Carya's life as it was. Sally felt hopelessly sorry for him, but nobody spoke. Rain's presence weighed on them like a smothering blanket.

The sun was climbing toward midmorning when the land changed. The smooth grass gave way to rocks and small fissures in the ground, creating dikes that they had to climb down into, and up out of again. The shield hugged the contours of the ground no matter how rocky it was.

Carya climbed one final hill and stopped at the top, waiting for them. The rest of the group climbed up to join him. Below them lay a ravine, the deepest ground split of them all, and it snaked under the shield and out of sight. The rocky bottom steamed.

Carya pointed. "This is the only way into the city. The Rift."

* * *

Tails stood in blackness. There was no floor, no ceiling, no walls, only the endless dark. And somewhere out there was a monster. He could see its glowing green eyes.

"It's only an illusion," he told himself. "It's not real."

The monster came closer, its eyes glowing brighter. Tails's heart pounded. His brain knew that it was an illusion, but his body wanted to flee. He forced himself to raise one hand and walk toward the eyes, to try to touch them.

The illusion vanished, and he was back in the throne room with the Empress Thorn.

"Do you always try to touch illusions?" she asked. She sat in her throne with her feet up on a stool. The throne was more like a big, cushy armchair that happened to be gilded with gold and jewels, and it had a big gap at the back to allow multiple tails to fit through.

Tails turned to face her, feeling how sweaty and damp his fur was. "I already know it's an illusion. Touching it just breaks it."

Thorn tapped her fingernails on the arm of the chair. "But in the land of illusion, how do you discern reality?"

"Illusion is only sight," said Tails. "You can't fool the other senses."

"Well said," said Thorn, cracking a smile. "Your powers are understandably weak, but your mind is sharp enough. What did you do before you came here?"

"I'm going to college to be a mechanic," said Tails. "I build machines."

Thorn's smile vanished. "What a waste of time. When you gain your next few tails, you won't be able to touch them. You should study other things, like chaos physics and military conquest."

"I don't want to take over the world," said Tails, outraged. "And I like machines."

"Spoken like a true child," said the Empress. "You are dismissed. I want you back here at the same time tomorrow morning."

Rebuffed and irritated, Tails left the throne room and found his way back upstairs to the exit, hating the feel of his sweaty fur and vowing to take a shower as soon as he got back.

He reached the street, and the warm sunlight made him sweat even more. Panting, he turned left and trotted up the street, watching for his next turn.

He walked a lot farther than he remembered, and never saw his turn. Instead, the road curved right. The tall towers and walls gave way to regal-looking houses, each one like a tiny palace with turrets and pillars. There were a few kitsunes out in their yards, and Tails counted no less than six tails on any of them. He had found the upper caste section of Azul, it seemed.

This was obviously not the way back to the apartment. He tried retracing his steps, but got even more lost. Were the streets changing behind him? He stood and stared at the place where he knew his cross street had been. He remembered a certain tree. But the cross street was gone, and there was only more house-castles. There was an illusion going on somewhere, but Tails couldn't tell where it was.

He kept walking, though. Sooner or later he had to get back to the western edge of the city, or maybe somebody would complain about him being in the fancy part of town and they would drag him back. But nobody paid any attention to him, and he walked on, growing hotter and more uncomfortable by the minute. He was also growing thirsty.

He found another cross street and recklessly turned left. At least he was headed in the right direction now. At once the houses stopped, and he found high walls on either side of the road. Suddenly a gate appeared where there had been empty street a second before. Tails shut his eyes and reached out to touch it. When he opened his eyes, his hands had passed straight through it. He stepped through.

On the other side was an army.

Tails stopped and stared. Kitsunes wearing black combat armor were everywhere. The area might have once been a park, because there were lots of tall, spreading trees. But now tents rose in clumps everywhere he looked, and kitsunes stood or sat around them, polishing wicked-looking swords or large chunks of yellow crystal. Off in the distance he saw regiments of kitsunes practicing combat moves. And every kitsune he saw had four or more tails.

He backed up until the gate smoked into sight around him, then ran back up the street. Why did they have an army? Who were they attacking? The Empress's words about chaos physics and military conquest sprang to mind.

He returned to the neighborhood, sat on a rock in the shade of a tree, and caught his breath. He was completely drenched in sweat now, and his heart pounded so hard that it was hard to breathe. This freaky illusion-city and its freaky kitsunes who looked all nice but plotted war ... he had to warn somebody! But there were no radios or phones here. He had to escape somehow.

A purple kitsune approached him and beckoned. Tails stood up. "Can you take me back to the west side?"

The purple kitsune nodded and set off at a jog up the road. Tails followed.

Sure enough, one of the regal houses was an illusion concealing the road. The purple kitsune led Tails through it, and there was the palace. He paid close attention to their route, and saw that the turn he had missed was concealed in a wall.

When he was within sight of the apartment complex again, the purple kitsune smiled, waved, and walked off. Tails waved back and made a beeline for his door. He just wanted a shower.

* * *

Sonic stared down into the Chaos Rift. The power radiating from it made him tingle all over, as if he was on the verge of going Super Sonic. "Why is chaos power coming out of the ground?" he asked Carya.

Carya shrugged. "We don't know. But the shield doesn't touch the ground inside the Rift. You can walk right inside, but it will hurt you."

"Oh, I don't think it'll hurt me," said Sonic, catching Sally's eye. "The trouble is I might like it a little too much." He whispered in her ear, "Sal, it's like standing on top of all seven emeralds! I'll go super the second I jump down there."

"So try it," said Slasher, folding her arms. "If you burn up, we'll know it's dangerous."

Sonic jumped into the Chaos Rift without another word. Sally and the dinosaurs all leaned over the edge to see what became of him.

It was only fifteen feet deep. Sonic landed in a roll, jumped to his feet, and stood breathing deeply. "Whoa," he said, stretching his arms above his head. "I feel like ... like I'll take off and fly if I'm not careful." He turned and zipped out of sight up the Rift, under the shield. They gazed after him, waiting.

After a few minutes Sonic returned, doing sixty. He jumped the fifteen feet to the Rift's edge without effort and rejoined them, his quills shimmering gold at the edges. "The Rift is great," he said, "but there's a jillion kitsunes in there. A whole city of 'em. How in the world are we gonna find Tails without the others noticing us?"

Everyone looked at Carya. He ducked his head. "I don't know."

Slasher turned to Rain. "Will you please go hunt us something for lunch?"

"Getting rid of me?" said Rain.

"Yes," said Slasher. "You might as well be useful for once. We need to plan and I don't want you making snide remarks the whole time."

"What if I stay?" said Rain.

"Then I'll take you through the Chaos Rift with us," said Slasher. "Let's see how well your flesh sizzles."

Rain turned and ran off into the trees.

Slasher turned to their guards. "Go hang out in the shade. We need to talk over here."

The pair bobbed their heads and walked off to the edge of the trees.

Slasher turned to her friends and Carya. "All right, they're taken care of. Any ideas?"

"All that comes to mind is a disguise," said Sally. "But we don't have the materials."

"Or a really big distraction," said Sonic. "I could run in and yell for Tails, and see who comes running."

"Depends on what you think they'd do to you," said Slasher. "Aren't kitsunes supposed to have really strong chaos powers?"

"Yeah," said Sonic. "Remember that little rabbit, Cream? Sally and I met her a while ago. Her chaos field was so crazy strong that her chao had to stay with her all the time to keep it under control. I heard that her chaos aura was as strong as some kitsunes'. I didn't think much about it at the time, though."

"So we have to consider everyone in there to be armed and dangerous," said Slasher. "Since we don't know what they can do, just think of everyone as having Shadow's chaos spear move."

Sonic shuddered.

"With so much chaos power out here, no wonder the Tornado shut off when we got close," said Sally.

Sonic snapped his fingers. "The Tornado! It can track Tails and tell us where he is! Then I can go get him!"

"If we can get the Tornado working again," said Slasher. "Unfortunately we're missing its mechanic."

Carya waved his tail and looked offended. "Our machine builders aren't completely incompetent, you know."

"Well, we'll have to see if they can get it running again," said Sonic. "I don't know how much chaos damage it took, or if it'll need new parts or what. We won't know until we crack the engine open."

Slasher looked at Carya. "Could you go into the Rift again?"

"Yes," said Carya. "My scars are like armor. They protect me as long as I don't fall on my back."

"Why'd you go in the first time?" Slasher asked.

Carya turned his head away and gazed into the distance without answering.

Slasher watched him closely, as did Sonic and Sally.

"You can tell us," said Sally. "We won't tell anyone."

Carya continued to stare at nothing.

Slasher looked at the shield shimmering above them, and then down at the Chaos Rift with its steaming floor. Her eyes widened. She stepped over behind Sonic and Sally and lowered her wings, draping around them like a tent. "Carya," she said softly. He turned and looked at her.

"These are my children," said Slasher very softly. "I have loved non-raptors all my life. Where I come from, it is no crime."

Carya stared at her and blinked his third eyelid several times. Then he said, so quietly they could barely hear him, "I was here alone. I looked through the shield. The kitsunes had taken one of their kind into the Rift and they were killing him. They were tearing his tails off. I had to do something."

"So you jumped into the Rift and ran in?" Slasher asked.

Carya nodded. "The rest fled when I came. They probably thought I was going to eat him. I carried him outside, but by then I was so burned that I could go no farther."

"Did he die?" asked Sonic.

"No," said Carya. "He was hurt, but not fatally. He used the Rift's power to heal himself, and then he healed me. But he did it wrong, he said, because it should not have scarred so much. The pain remained for months afterward."

"What happened to him?" asked Sally.

A look of fear crept into Carya's eyes. "I can't tell you. I've said too much."

There was a long silence. Slasher gazed at Carya with real interest for the first time. Carya turned his head away and stared at nothing again. "You know," said Slasher, tucking in her wings again, "I think you're one of the first decent people I've met here."

Whatever he had expected her to say, it wasn't that. Carya looked at her, and if he could have blushed, he would have. He ducked his head and walked away a few steps instead.

"Well!" said Sally. "I guess we go back and get the Tornado fixed."

"Sounds good to me," said Slasher. "Maybe we can leave before Rain gets back."

They collected Butch and Flail, and to their disappointment, Rain returned just as they were joining hands to teleport back. He had a large dead bird of some kind in his jaws, which he presented to Slasher as if giving her flowers. She sighed and took it with one finger, and they all teleported back to the dinosaur town.

There Slasher deliberately offended Rain by plucking off all the feathers, roasting the bird over a fire, and making her companions eat it, while she refused to touch a bite.

"Why don't you have some, Slash?" said Sonic, gnawing a blackened chunk of meat. "It's not that bad."

"If I eat it, then I accept his gift," she growled. "I'm not giving him that kind of opening."

After lunch they checked on the Tornado. To their surprise, the small dinosaurs had cleaned the dirt out of the intake, had cracked open the engine housing, and had cleaned the inside of it, too. They had set it upright on its belly, and it looked much better that way.

Sonic stuck his head into the housing and looked at the engine. He didn't know as much about it as Tails did, but nothing looked broken. He stuck his chaos emerald into the power converter, and flipped the Charge switch. Then he climbed into the cockpit and tried to power it up.

To his surprise, the screen lit, and the Tornado's voice said, "Greetings, Sonic."

"Hey, you're alive," said Sonic. "Are you damaged?"

Twenty-five small dinosaurs leaped up onto the wings and rim of the cockpit to stare at the screen and listen to the plane's voice.

"Damage to undercarriage is fifteen percent," said the Tornado. "This may hinder transformation to boat mode."

"How about walker mode?" asked Sonic.

"All systems operational," said the Tornado. "What are all these strange lifeforms?"

"Oh, a bunch of dinosaurs we met," said Sonic. "They helped get you cleaned up."

"Are they friendly or hostile?" The Tornado sounded excited.

"Friendly."

"Oh." The plane sounded disappointed. "Registered as friendly. Power levels are ten percent. Six hours required for complete recharging."

"Awesome," said Sonic. "We need you to track Tails for us once you're up and running. How close do you think you can get to that city?"

"The kitsune city has a constant aura of chaos power," said the Tornado. "It affects me like magnetic pulse. I cannot get too close, because it overwhelms my chaos shielding. But I can track Tails from a distance. Shall I locate him now?"

"Sure, if you can," said Sonic.

A map appeared on its screen, and the watching dinosaurs murmured in awe. Sonic looked around and saw a crowd of larger dinosaurs clustered around the plane now, hanging their heads low to peer at the screen. Their smelly breath blew Sonic's quills this way and that. He tried to ignore it.

The map panned aross the valley to the giant circle of the kitsune city. It showed up as a wavering green mass. The Tornado scanned it with crisscrossing lines, and finally indicated one spot near the western edge with a red dot. "It is difficult to get a clear reading, but Tails's signature has a forty-percent certainty of being in this location."

"Is that using the thrall sphere?" asked Sonic.

"Yes," said the Tornado. "My other scans show only static."

"All right, let me out," said Sonic, standing in the seat and shoving dinosaur bodies and heads out of his way. They parted to let him out, then a handful leaped into the seat. "You'd better not mess in there," said Sonic as he climbed down. "I have to sit in that seat."

The dinosaurs chittered and laughed. One large duckbilled dinosaur with a crest rumbled, "If anyone does, we will feed them to the allosaurs."

Slasher and Sally had watched all this from a distance. Sonic told them what the Tornado had said. "Great," said Sally. "We'll wait until dark, then send you in. There will be fewer people on the streets then, and you can find Tails without too much trouble, hopefully."

* * *

The Floating Island was far south, near the equator, which was Knuckles's favorite place to be in the fall. A warm trade wind bent the trees and sent leaves scurrying across the grass.

Zephyer sat in a chair on the front porch with Simoon in her lap. He was nearly four months old, and insisted on standing in her lap, despite not being able to sit up by himself. His head already had a thick crop of red fur, and the tiny beginnings of the thick spine-dreadlocks were beginning to sprout. He looked remarkably like Knuckles. He even had knuclaws on his tiny hands.

Silver and Talon rounded the corner of the house and jumped up on the porch. "Hi guys," said Zephyer. "What're you up to?"

"Nothing much," said the white hedgehog, pushing back the fan of spines that grew out of his forehead. The wind had knocked them forward into his eyes.

Silver had wandered onto the Floating Island one day and had been there ever since. Knuckles theorized that Silver was displaced from his own time, and figured he needed watching. Silver didn't know, because his memories had faded to nothing, leaving him with no past.

"We were looking at Knuckles's tunnel," said Talon. He was a young anteater whom Knuckles and Zephyer had adopted a year or two earlier. "Are the kitsunes really going to attack us?"

"I don't know," said Zephyer, frowning. "Knuckles sure thinks so."

"His tunnel's just about finished," said Silver. "We went down inside. It connects to a cave about a hundred feet down, and Knuckles is setting up teleporters to all kinds of places."

"We'll need to come up with an escape plan," said Zephyer. "Some way of letting everybody know when the attack happens, and knowing where to go. If it does, I want you guys to go to Knothole and stay there."

Silver and Talon straightened and looked indignant. "But we fought the Black Arms!" said Talon.

"And I helped catch that leader fox guy the other night!" added Silver. "What do you mean we can't stay? We can help!"

"I don't want either of you in the line of fire," said Zephyer. "The Black Arms were one thing, but kitsunes use chaos power. Imagine Super Sonic coming after you, planning to kill you. Do you think you could fight him?"

Talon and Silver looked at each other, then looked down. "I guess not," said Silver. He levitated a leaf out of the yard and broke off its tips.

"What about you and Simoon?" asked Talon.

Simoon jumped up and down in Zephyer's lap, flapping his arms and cooing. Zephyer kept a firm hold on him. "I'll leave him in Knothole and come back here," she said. "Apparently the Master Emerald responds well to my mother bear instinct."

"Is that how you incinerated those kitsunes?" asked Silver.

Zephyer nodded. "We're trying a few new combinations with the warrior armor and the Master Emerald. I think we'll be okay. But in case we aren't, I don't want any of you here."

She was interrupted as Simoon pitched himself backward and bashed his head into her chin.


	6. Chapter 6

Tails showered, shook off, and groomed himself with the supplied brush and comb. He paid close attention to these things, and the reality of the comb scraping through his fur and snagging on tangles. Because it was real.

Tails had never had a problem identifying reality before. All his life he had surrounded himself with mechanical things and mathematics, because they were orderly. They didn't shift and change, and the rules were always the same. His brain took information and sorted it into groups and categories that made sense. Even things that didn't make sense, like chaos emeralds and thrall spheres, had their own category. He didn't understand how they worked, but that didn't mean that they were incomprehensible. He tucked them away under "learn more about this later".

But the illusions that the Empress had subjected him to, and wandering through Azul as it changed around him, had rattled him. He knew that kitsunes projected illusions. He had seen through illusions, with Dusk's help. That should have been enough. But the city itself was covered in illusions, and there was no kitsune around to make them. How much of the city was real? If some monster really did attack him, would he know it was real? Was the monster outside the city's shield real? Was any of this room real?

He focused on the rasp of the comb and the pull of it on his fur. This was real. This was happening right now, because his other senses told him so. But somewhere a voice inside him was screaming, "How do you know for sure? How can you tell if anything is real?"

This brought up all kinds of things he had read about quantum physics and theories about the universe really not being there at all, which did not help his state of mind. He missed Sonic with a sudden horrible pang. Sonic would have made wisecracks and jokes about the weirdness, and they would have both laughed it off and coped much better. He couldn't laugh about anything with Dusk.

He brushed his headfur and studied himself in the mirror. He was as tall as Sonic now--a tall, skinny orange fox with two tails. On a whim he threw an illusion over himself to turn into Sonic. He stared at the illusion in the mirror. It certainly looked like Sonic, although Sonic never looked so serious, or tired. He had deep shadows under his eyes. Tails let the illusion fade and grabbed the sides of his head. The illusion was so real ... how did he know that the illusion wasn't the real thing and the reality was the illusion?

He left the bathroom and curled up on the couch with his eyes shut tight. He wished that he was blind, and didn't have to use his lying eyes anymore.

After a while he heard Dusk walk in. "Tails?" she said softly. "Are you okay?"

"Not really," he said. "I got to meet Empress Thorn and she did illusions on me. Then I got lost coming back. Because of the city illusions."

"Oh." Dusk walked up and patted him on the shoulder. When he didn't stir, she walked off. After a few minutes he heard her run across the living room. Then she ran back. Then back the other way. Tails cracked open an eyelid to see what she was doing.

Dusk had a glowing blue ball that she was throwing up in the air. It floated slowly downward, like a balloon, and she ran around, batting it into the air.

"What's that?" asked Tails, momentarily forgetting his abhorrence of illusion.

"A kitsune ball," said Dusk. "It's just a piece of my energy that I play with sometimes. It's not illusion, if you're wondering." She caught it and held it out. It floated over her palm, barely touching it. She closed her hand over it and it vanished into her. She opened her hand and looked at it, and after a second blue energy welled out of her skin and reformed into a ball.

Unlike illusion, Tails had no desire to try to learn this power. He had enough strange powers at his disposal already, and he didn't like them. He closed his eyes again, mentally disassembled the Tornado's engine, and tried to tune the thrall sphere to allow for vocal communication.

* * *

Nobody bothered Dusk and Tails all day long. Tails took two naps and felt better by that evening. They stayed indoors all day, not even venturing out to clean crystals. Dusk was happy enough indoors, but the one time Tails mentioned going out to work, she stuck her thumb in her mouth and shrank into a corner. Tails didn't feel like going outside, either.

Tails examined the bookcases out of boredom. He was not interested in A Guide to Illusion, or Self-Help for the One-Tailed, or How to Make any Dish Look Good and Taste That Way. He found a History of Azul and took it down. This weird city had to have a weird history. He thumbed through it.

He learned that several thousand years ago, Mobius's polar ice cap had been smaller and many people lived in North Mobius. But the climate changed and the ice sheets crept south. But they never penetrated the one warm volcanic valley. The cold was held at bay by the hot springs and the Chaos Rift. The Rift was well known to everyone in North Mobius, and a small town beside it catered to people who came to bathe in its power.

Then came the Chaos Wars. The kitsunes banded together for survival and fled north, where they used the Chaos Rift to empower themselves to battle the Chaos Ruler. The Ruler fell and peace resumed, but the kitsunes had become accustomed to feeding off the raw chaos power. They settled in the valley and built the city of Azul. This section had a lot of information about the type of stone used to create the buildings and roads. Apparently it was a type of marble that was so infused with chaos power that a kitsune could plant an illusion in the stone, and the stone would hold the illusion there until a kitsune wiped it out or replaced it.

No wonder the city kept changing, Tails thought. It was completely painted with illusion.

The book chronicled how the kitsunes governed themselves as well. The top pair of nine-tailed kitsunes were called the Lord and Lady, and ruled simply because they had the most power. But because it was so difficult to obtain nine tails, these were usually the wisest and oldest of the kitsunes, and generally made good leaders.

Tails flipped around, looking for any mention of an Empress. There wasn't one. So what was Thorn? Nobody had referred to her as the Lady. He thought uncomfortably of that nine-tailed kitsune in the bubble in the palace. Something was rotten in the state of Azul, and he wasn't sure that he wanted to know any more.

He shoved the book back up on the shelf just as someone knocked on the door.

Dusk faded into the bedroom. Tails walked hesitantly to the door and peered through the peephole. It was one small kitsune carrying their daily box of food. Breathing a sigh of relief, Tails unlocked the door and opened it.

The kitsune walked in with a shy smile and placed the box on the counter. Then he turned and motioned for Tails to close the door. Tails obeyed, slowly. He didn't want to talk to some stranger.

The young kitsune had only one tail, and looked familiar for some reason. As Tails watched, the stranger pulled a pad of paper and a pencil out of the food box, scribbled something down, and held it up. It said, "I am mute. I need your help."

"Um," said Tails.

The stranger scribbled some more. Dusk peered around the corner at them, her thumb in her mouth.

The stranger held up his notepad again. "You are Miles Prower, the one who fixes machines?"

"Yeah, that's me," said Tails. "But what's that got to do with you? You're a kitsune."

The kitsune noticed Dusk and pointed at her.

"She's with me," said Tails. "She won't give you away, will you, Dusk?"

She shook her head, eyes round.

The kitsune flipped to a new page and wrote, "I am a robot. I need you to fix me."

Tails stared at the kitsune. He looked quite realistic. Then it hit him. "Are you putting an illusion over yourself?"

The kitsune nodded.

Tails looked at Dusk, who also nodded.

Dreading what he might see underneath, Tails motioned to the kitsune and said, "Then, uh ... take the illusion off so I can see ... what's wrong." He braced himself, expecting to see another Metal Sonic.

The kitsune illusion faded. Underneath was a poorly-made fox doll, rather like something a scientist would make to study animals in their natural habitat. It was was dirty and tattered, as if it had been operating by itself for a long time. Its body was made of orange and white plush, and a red crystal stuck out of its head on a wire. The creepy thing was the way it floated an inch above the ground, and the limp way its arms and legs dangled.

It was the fox-doll from Tails's dreams. He stared at its blank, stitched-on eyes. Vividly he remembered the fox who had appeared out of nowhere to pull him back through the shield, escaping certain death, and the other kitsune who guided him back through the city. Both had helped him without ever speaking a word. Now he knew who it was. He had to swallow a few times before he could say, "So what's wrong with you?"

It still held the pencil and paper in its mitten-like hands. It lifted them, scribbled, and held it up. "I had a nasty fall recently and many parts inside me are disconnected." It reached into the food box and produced a bundle of ordinary tools, like pliers and screwdrivers, such as Tails had not seen since he arrived. A rush of homesickness swept through him.

"Go lay on the couch," said Tails, taking the tools. "I'll see what I can do. Dusk, watch the door."

She nodded and moved so she could see both the door and the couch.

The fox doll moved to the couch and collapsed on its face like a marionette whose puppeteer has dropped it. A zipper ran down its back. Tails gingerly unzipped it. Underneath was the robot's metal skin, and its paneling had large, obvious screws in it. The design looked like Robotnik's work, but this machine had not been built for combat, as Mecha had been.

Tails unscrewed the panels and carefully examined the inside of the robot. The wiring was dusty and corroded, and the circuit boards and gearwork were dusted with broken fragments and bits of glass. Tails wondered how the machine still functioned. He carefully reconnected the most obvious of the wires, found a loose chip, and located the slot where it fit. "How's that?" he asked the doll.

It raised one hand with the thumb up.

"I need your schematics for better repairs, though," said Tails. "I just don't understand where the rest of you fits together."

The doll reached back and gently grabbed his hand.

Pictures of the robot's schematics appeared in Tails's mind. He jumped and pulled out of the doll's grasp, and the images faded. "You're psychic!" he said.

The doll didn't move.

Slowly Tails reached for its hand again. "Show me the schematics."

With the doll's schematics in his mind's eye, Tails combed through its mechanical body and fixed the various loose ends. He also found places that had burned out, but he could do nothing for those areas without new parts. Finally he replaced the paneling and zipped the skin back over the robot.

The doll rose to its feet, although 'standing' really meant 'floating erect'. It threw its kitsune illusion back over itself and wrote on its notepad, "Thank you. I owe you a favor."

Tails didn't have to think about what favor he wanted. "Figure out a way that Dusk and I can escape from this place."

The fox doll looked thoughtful and nodded. Tails escorted it to the door and let it out, and locked the door behind it.

"Well," he remarked to Dusk, "that was one of the weirdest things to happen all day."

He spoke too soon. A second later a soft female voice said, "Attention all kitsunes. A city meeting has been called at the palace in one hour. If you are among those who have recently arrived, then you will have your recent assembly explained to you. Thank you."

Tails peered at the ceiling, looking for a speaker. There was none. "This place is creepy-weird," he muttered. "Well, should we go?"

Dusk shrugged.

Tails dug into the box of food. "Let's eat, then."

* * *

Carya lay on a patch of damp earth in the shade, his black skin blending with the leaves and grass around him. He was conserving his energy for that night, when he would once more enter the fox city.

If he lifted his head a little, he could see Slasher about fifty feet away. She, too, was lying in the shade with Sally beside her. Sally was working on her small machine, and Slasher was watching, speaking softly. Carya watched them a moment, then dropped his head back down behind a screen of ferns. He was attracted to Slasher, but he also did not know what to make of her. She knew the language and customs of their people, but she also held to other customs and beliefs that made her completely foreign.

Like befriending mammalian Mobians. Carya was used to the dinosaurs keeping to their own kinds, and their own tribes within the reptilian community. The hatred of kitsunes was so ingrained in their culture that it had extended to all other mammals. For Slasher to admit to him that she loved non-dinosaurs was shocking and scandalous.

But then, so did Carya.

He thought guiltily of Kantrez. Carya should have let the other kitsunes kill him, but no, Carya had had to jump into the Rift to save him. He remembered running at the kitsune mob, screaming with every step as the chaos power burned through his flesh. The kitsunes fled, leaving Kantrez in a mangled heap on the Rift floor. Carya's memory was spotty at this point. He knew that he had lifted Kantrez and carried him out of the city, but he barely remembered doing it. He had managed to jump out of the Rift ... at least, he assumed he had, because that was where he regained consciousness.

Kantrez had healed him, channeling the same power that had seconds ago nearly killed Carya. But the repaired flesh, instead of forming new skin, had instead formed a hard, bony shell of scars across Carya's belly, legs, throat and tail. He had no feeling in those areas, but they were so hard that they repelled teeth and claws.

Carya had taken Kantrez and sneaked through the forest with him, avoiding the allosaurs, and found a nice narrow cave for him to live in. Kantrez was extremely grateful. Carya sneaked back every so often to check on him, take him food, and talk. Kantrez had also taken a long time to heal, despite his emergency healing at the Rift, and he was as curious about Carya as Carya was about him.

Carya shifted positions to a patch of cooler ground and sighed. If the other raptors had ever discovered his treachery, they would have sentenced him to ritual death. Slasher knew his secret, but she would not give him away. She saw nothing wrong with befriending a kitsune, because she had done the same thing. He wistfully imagined what it would be like if she accepted him as her mate, and he journeyed south with her back to her home, where she lived among Mobians and there was nothing forbidden about talking to them and learning about them.

But he could not leave Kantrez. Who would feed him and visit him? Kantrez could not return to the kitsune city, although he had many plans for doing so. Kantrez's biggest fear was not the other kitsunes. It was the allosaurs. Kantrez's plan hinged on removing the shield over the city, but he did not want the dinosaurs attacking and eating his people. Carya agreed with his point of view, but did not know what to do. Carya was a bottom-ranking male with no influence over the other dinosaurs.

He sighed, ruffling the leaves around him. Perhaps he could introduce Sonic, Sally and Slasher to Kantrez. Maybe they could come up with a better plan between them.

* * *

Sonic teleported around and around the city, peering through the shield at each new spot. He found that if he pressed his face against the shield and cupped his hands around his eyes, the shield's obscuring ripple cleared a bit, and he could see through.

The blue stone of the buildings, the towers, and the well-groomed landscaping impressed him. The kitsunes gave the impression of an old, settled civilization that was quite well to-do. Occasionally he saw a kitsune or two moving about the streets. None of them noticed him, and he was surprised to see that most of them had more than two tails.

There was no sign of Tails, but Sonic couldn't see far into the city at any given point because there were too many buildings. From what he saw, however, the city was built around one especially large tower in the middle. A palace, maybe?

Sonic teleported back to the dinosaur end of the valley, found Sally and Slasher outside of the cave they were staying in. He flopped down beside them and relayed what he had learned.

"It's a big city, but it's not as big as Robotropolis was," Sonic concluded. "It's probably only ten miles across. Do we know what kitsunes can do, though? I never saw anybody with less than three tails. I even saw one dude with eight or nine."

Sally referenced Nicole's screen. "According to the data I collected on the way here, kitsune powers draw mainly from the white and orange chaos emeralds. They're extremely smart, they're all about deception and illusion, and they practice seeing through other people's illusions. There are even rumors of mind-reading. Then there's the usual elemental powers; controlling fire and lightning. And they can teleport, but that's standard."

Sonic ran his hands through his quills. "Great," he said. "How will I even know what's real in there?"

"Take a blindfold," said Slasher. "Go by touch."

"Yeah, that'd work real well," said Sonic. "This hedgehog blundering around, bumping into people and yelling for Tails. Nobody would notice something like that, I'm sure."

"You could still go by touch," said Sally. "If you're not sure something is real, just touch it and find out."

Sonic gave her a sarcastic look. "Two words, Sal. Thrall. Sphere. Touching weird things is never a good idea."

"So take Carya with you," said Sally. "His sense of smell would help you out."

"I thought the kitsunes hated dinosaurs?" said Sonic. "I might as well put a sign on my back that says, 'Kill me quick', because that's what'll happen."

Sally threw her hands in the air. "I give up, Mister Difficult. You figure out what to do."

Sonic lay down on his back and folded his hands behind his head. "I have a better idea. I'm gonna take a nap."

"You do that," said Sally, going back to her tiny computer.

Slasher watched them both and said nothing until Sonic was softly snoring. Then she said very quietly, "You two are crazy about each other, aren't you?"

"What gave you that impression?" said Sally without looking up, but unable to hide a smile.

* * *

As the sun settled behind the western mountains, Tails and Dusk left their room and ventured out into the city.

Tails had been worried that he might not remember the way to the palace, but it was easier than he had thought. There were many other kitsunes going the same way, so he and Dusk just followed them.

"Anybody know what this is all about?" called one kitsune.

"No idea," said another. "I want to know why we're here and see if they'll let me go home."

"Same here," said another.

Tails glanced at Dusk, who had her thumb in her mouth. It was comforting to realize that they were not the only ones who had been kidnapped.

The group swelled to a crowd by the time they reached the high golden doors of the palace. Two guards stood outside, and opened the doors as the crowd approached. "Downstairs to the throne room," said one guard, and the crowd trooped obediently inside and down the stairs.

There was a short scrimmage at the throne room entrance. The newly-arrived kitsunes entered the room, saw the white kitsune in the bubble, and froze on the threshold. The others behind them jostled and shoved, only to freeze in their turn to stare in horror.

Tails had already seen the unfortunate kitsune, and after what he had read in the history book, he didn't want a closer look. Dusk caught sight of the trapped fox and stared, forgetting to suck her thumb. Tails dragged her out of the way of the others and around the bubble's pedestal to the open space before the throne, where a vast array of chairs had appeared. He grabbed chairs on the far right in the middle row.

Dusk sat in her chair and twisted around to stare at the bubble again. It was now surrounded by staring kitsunes, who were pointing and murmuring. Many reached up to touch the bubble, which repelled their hands like hard glass.

Several guards appeared and began directing traffic, shooing people away from the bubble and toward the chairs. The foxes went reluctantly, and Tails heard many muttered comments to the effect of what a terrible place this was, and who was the royalty, and how barbaric they must be to display a prisoner in such a way.

The chairs slowly filled. More kitsunes trickled in from outside. The ones with few tails reacted the same way to seeing the white kitsune's bubble, but the multi-tailed upper class who entered hardly gave it a glance.

Tails peered around at the crowd. It looked like all of the new kitsunes had been summoned, but only a few of the regular citizens. He wondered if they held positions of power or something.

Finally the chairs were filled, and they heard the distant boom of the palace doors closing. There was a sudden hush. Everyone looked around expectantly. The throne was empty, and before it sat a small brazier that sent out tendrils of fragrant smoke.

The lights dimmed. A ball of golden light flew into the room and hovered up by the ceiling. Everyone watched it as it flew around the room three times, dipping close to the heads of the audience as it passed. As it moved, it grew like a flower, putting out petals of red and gold light, dripping motes of light that hung in midair.

Finally the flower flew to the stage by the throne. It hovered over the brazier, and wrapped the smoke around itself to form itself into a fox-shape. The smoke darkened and the golden flower disappeared into it. Lightning sparked over the smoke. Then the smoke exploded outward, and there stood Empress Thorn in a long violet robe.

The crowd applauded. Tails and Dusk did not.

Thorn smiled and bowed graciously. "Welcome newcomers!" she said, extending both arms. "I am Empress Thorn. On behalf of the city of Azul, capital of the kitsune empire, I welcome you and offer you our best services."

The crowd murmured polite nothings.

"Now!" said Thorn, "you have not yet been told why you are here. I am going to tell you why, and give you the option of living here permanently. Or, if you so choose, you may return to your previous home."

There was much eager shifting and flicking of ears.

The Empress cast an illusion into the air and began to tell the story of the kitsunes with pictures. It was the same story that Tails had read in the history book, except that Thorn did not mention the kitsune Lord and Lady. He tried not to think about that, because it made him want to turn around and stare at that kitsune in the bubble.

Then Thorn reached parts that Tails hadn't read, and he had to pay attention.

"And after the Chaos Wars were but a distant memory, the kitsunes began to have trouble with another settlement nearby. The other races hated us and tried to eliminate us, so we had to erect the shield for our own protection. This is a shame, because as you might have noticed, the rest of the valley is beautiful. But it is filled with enemies, so no one may venture out.

"Now, many years ago, before the shield, kitsunes came and went in Azul. Many left the city and settled down in other parts of Mobius. That is where most of you originated. But times have changed. Most of you know of the political upheaval of recent years: the various attacks upon the human colonies. The invasion of the Black Arms. I have consulted together with my advisers about this for several years, and we felt it best to gather all the scattered kitsunes together into one place for their own protection, and the protection of our race.

"You are free to go or stay, as you choose. But you must now hear what we have known for a long time."

Thorn's slideshow changed to show a rotating image of Mobius. "We have lately learned of a new threat," she said. "Very few people know that the global chaos field has a hub point. This hub point is constantly moving because it is tied to a single gem. But not a Chaos Emerald."

The globe expanded, zooming in on the ocean until it located an island. Not just any island, though. Tails's heart leaped into his throat and nearly choked him.

"This is the Floating Island," said Thorn. "It is the hiding place of a gem of immense power called the Master Emerald. But there is a problem. The Guardian of the Master Emerald has resurrected the ancient feud that his kind held with our people. He has declared war on us. What is more, he has the means to do it. The Master Emerald grants him the power to track people across the world and destroy them. Several of our people have died already at his hand. We gathered the rest of you here to protect you from his wrath, but it is not enough. As we speak, the Floating Island moves into the northern hemisphere. He is coming here, to destroy Azul."

"She's lying!" Tails whispered savagely to Dusk. "I know Knuckles, he'd never do anything like that! She's trying to get everybody riled up!"

It was working. Around him, kitsunes exchanged worried glances and whispered to each other. The Empress watched them all with a serene smile.

"With that, I shall dismiss you all," she said. "Think about this, and weigh the risks of returning to your old homes. Here, you are protected. There, you are not. If you wish to leave, please come to the palace tomorrow morning and we shall arrange an outbound teleport."

The crowd rose to its feet and began to drift toward the rear of the throne room, still muttering and whispering.

Tails grabbed Dusk and pulled her behind a pillar. "Make us invisible," he whispered.

She threw an illusion over them, and they huddled together, watching the others leave. The higher-ranked citizens had all remained in their seats, and Thorn was watching everyone leave with a strange, half-mocking expression. No one had noticed Tails and Dusk disappear, and nobody seemed to see through their illusion.

* * *

Sonic jumped into the Chaos Rift, ran under the edge of the shield, leaped out of the Rift and crouched on the edge, looking and listening. All was quiet. The nearest street was deserted, lit innocently by crystal streetlights.

Sonic dashed down the street to the corner, where he dove into the dense shadow under a towering tree. Here was an intersection. He watched and listened, but the street was empty. Or so it seemed. There might be kitsunes walking around right in front of him, but if they had put an invisibility illusion over themselves, there was no way he would see them.

According to the Tornado's scan, Tails was near the western edge of town, several blocks further south. Sonic ran from street to street, dodging from shadow to shadow, hiding behind pillars and sculptures, trying to avoid being seen by invisible eyes.

He reached the point where he thought the Tornado had marked Tails, and found himself facing an apartment building. Tails could be in any one of the rooms. Sonic mentally cussed this city and the amount of chaos energy that kept him from using a scanner. He didn't even know if Tails was still there or not.

As he crouched there, looking up at the building and wondering what to do, he noticed a small fox walking toward him. Its eyes were fixed on him, and it looked curious. Sonic tensed to run.

The little kitsune stopped and held up a notepad with something written on it. Sonic squinted, but he couldn't read it in the dark. He motioned to the kitsune, and it trotted up to him and joined him in his hiding place.

"Hi," Sonic whispered. "I'm trying to find someone."

The kitsune handed him its notepad. Sonic held it up to his nose before he could make out the scribbled words. "Are you looking for a fox who fixes machines named Tails?"

"Oh," Sonic whispered. "Yeah, that's who I'm after. Do you know him?"

The kitsune took the notepad back, scribbled some more, and handed it back. "Yes, he's my friend. He is at the palace for a meeting. Come with me and I will hide you."

Sonic shrugged. "Sure, but how do I know that I can trust you?"

The kitsune pondered a moment, then wrote, "Bad things are happening. I can't stop them. Maybe you can."

It wasn't much of a reason, but it made Sonic curious. "Okay then, hide me."

The kitsune threw a curtain of illusion over them, and led Sonic out of hiding and down the street. Sonic followed close beside him. He could see the thin layer of illusion hiding them, but it gave him the creeps to be out in the open like this.

The stranger led him to the tower in the middle of the city. So it was the palace, Sonic thought. The doors stood open, and kitsunes were streaming out. Sonic and his escort stood to one side and watched the passing faces for Tails. He was not in the crowd, so Sonic and the stranger slipped into the doors and down the stairs inside.

* * *

The room emptied. Tails and Dusk crept back up the side of the throne room toward the stage with the throne where Thorn still stood. Fifteen or twenty kitsunes remained behind, all watching her expectantly.

"Well, now that the rabble are gone," said the Empress, "I can tell you what's really going on."

Her voice was cold and harsh now. She had dropped her friendly mask. The small audience seemed comfortable with her new front, and it unnerved Tails. The new kitsunes were 'rabble'?

"The weapon is complete," Thorn went on. "We even improved on its design to deliver a bigger payload. It will kill everything on that wretched island, but we feel that is not a sufficient demonstration of its power. To that end, we built three smaller versions. One of the small ones will be able to clean out the Floating Island. The others we will test on other locations. For instance, the idiots rebuilding Mobitropolis. Do you realize the implications of the Mobian Senate enforcing the trade laws again?"

The audience growled.

"Exactly," said Thorn. "So! One small weapon for the island, one for New Mobitropolis, one for Riverbase and all of those abominations who live there ..."

Tails clenched his fists. Riverbase was populated by peaceful robians, or people with robotic limbs.

"... and the big one for one of the blasted alien colonies. If they withstood the assaults of Perfect Chaos, Metal Sonic and the Black Arms, then they are a race worth worrying about. But we must put it to a vote. Which shall we eliminate--Sapphire City or Rio del Fuego?"

"How about neither?" said a voice.

Tails and Dusk spun around, Tails with a hot wave of terror shooting through him. No, not here, not now ...

But it was Sonic, standing in front of the kitsune bubble, alone and defiant. Tails was glad to see him, but he also had a vivid mental image of Sonic floating, unconscious, in a second bubble ...

Thorn smiled, and her kitsune audience rose to their feet. Each of them had six or more tails. Tails wanted to rush out and tell Sonic to run, but he couldn't. One of them had to stay free to rescue the other. He could only watch.

"You guys are really sick," said Sonic. "Do you have some fixation with slaughtering innocent people?

"How did you get through the shield?" asked Thorn as the other kitsunes left their seats and began walking slowly toward the blue hedgehog.

"Magic," said Sonic, grinning. "So, really ... is there any reason for you to kill all these random people? Or is it just for fun?"

"You have heard too much, hedgehog," said Thorn. "For that you will die."

"I doubt it," said Sonic, and disappeared.

Everyone froze. "Where'd he go?" said one kitsune.

"That was no illusion," said Thorn. "The scum has a Chaos Emerald on him. Search the palace! He teleported!"

Tails bit his knuckles in agony of suspense. Sonic would lead them a merry chase, but what would happen if they caught him? How did kitsunes kill people? He looked at the white kitsune in her bubble and his stomach churned.

Dusk poked him in the back. "Let's go," she whispered.


	7. Chapter 7

Outside the city, three raptors crouched in silence at the edge of the Chaos Rift. Carya kept hanging his head and shoulders over the edge to peer up the ravine for any signs of Sonic.

Slasher crouched further back, gazing through the shield. It was easier to see through it in the dark. And beside her crouched Rain, not close enough to touch, but close enough to annoy her.

The minutes ticked by. Sonic had been gone nearly half an hour. Slasher rose and trotted a short distance south, peering into the city. It was quiet and deserted, as far as she could see. She missed being able to use communicators ... she missed technology, period. Slasher had never dreamed that she would be so dependent on it, but the truth was that technology made life easier. They didn't even have a reliable scan of the city.

Slasher turned to go back and nearly bumped into Rain. He grinned and moved aside, barely, so that her wing brushed his side as she passed. Slasher imagined throwing him into the Rift.

Carya was back lit by the Rift, which in the darkness gave off a faint reddish glow. It illuminated his white scars, but his black skin obscured the rest of him. He looked weird and misshapen. A misfit raptor, like Slasher herself. She wished that it was Carya at her side, instead of Rain.

Carya looked back at them, his eyes reflecting the city light and glowing yellow. "I'm going into the Rift," he said softly. "I'm going to see what's happening."

Slasher nodded, and Carya jumped down into the Rift. She watched him run under the shield and out of sight, and it seemed to her that a faint glow illuminated him.

Rain bumped his shoulder into hers. "Looks like we're alone, baby."

"Yes," said Slasher. "I prefer to be alone." She opened her wings and leaped over Rain into the sky, leaving him staring with his jaw hanging open.

She beat her way toward the stars, relishing the opportunity to fly and get away from Rain at the same time. She caught a rising night breeze and circled, climbing above the trees, keeping an eye on the city's shield. She wanted to fly over it and look down on the city from above. Maybe she could spot Sonic that way, and perhaps even Tails.

The shield was half a mile high, and it took her a few minutes to gain that much altitude. Then she glided slowly over the shield, peering down. The streets were arranged parallel to the shield, in circles, so the buildings themselves provided protection against the outside. No wonder it was hard to see in. The Chaos Rift cut across the northern portion of the city, and the majority of it was inside the shield. From above she could see the rows and rows of glowing crystal conduits pumping power into the city. Interesting ... they used it as a power source instead of electricity.

She neared the center of the city and the highest point of the shield, and realized that the shield had a hub. Floating at the top of the dome was a blue crystal sphere the size of a car. The shield passed through its center.

The most remarkable thing was that someone was sitting on the sphere.

Slasher circled the sphere at a cautious distance until she could catch the figure's scent. It was a kitsune, but not Tails, as she had hoped.

As she flew, the figure noticed her. It rose to its feet and stared.

"Hello," Slasher called softly. "What are you doing up here?"

"I could ask you the same question, winged one," said the kitsune. "I've never seen one like you. Have you come to attack me?"

"No," said Slasher, hovering. "Two of my friends are inside the city, and they're in danger. I was hoping to spot them."

"Do you know Carya?" asked the kitsune.

"Yes," said Slasher. "Are you the kitsune he rescued?"

"Yes," said the kitsune. "Is he all right?"

Slasher flew to the sphere and carefully landed on it. It was smooth and her claws could get little purchase on it. She sat on all fours and said, panting, "Yes, Carya was helping my friends and me. I'm Slasher, and I'm from the New Mobitropolis area. These wings are implants."

Up close, she saw that the kitsune was slate gray, and his fur was dirty and matted. He had one moth-eaten tail, and was missing fur in a great patch on his lower back. He bowed to her courteously, however. "I am Kantrez. I came here to investigate the shield's controls. I would like to lower it, you see, but I'm afraid the dinosaurs would be a wee bit eager to get inside. Who are these friends of yours?"

Slasher explained about Tails's disappearance, and how Carya had showed Sonic how to get inside.

"The palace is directly under us," said Kantrez. "A large number of kitsunes entered and left it a while ago. Your friends are probably quite close."

* * *

Sonic had left his strange mute escort in the hallway, with instructions to stay hidden. Now he had provoked the kitsune queen or whoever she was, and all her buddies were chasing him.

Sonic was not interested in hiding. He wanted a chase. Tails was somewhere close, he was sure of it. So it was time to provide a distraction.

He dashed through a doorway and knocked over two of the kitsunes hunting him. "Oops, my bad," he said, and laughing, took off down the next hallway. Their enraged shouts followed him. They threw illusions around him like nets, hoping to fool him and stop him. Sonic ducked into a spindash and passed through fake walls, fake dinosaurs with slavering jaws, fake spikes that rose out of the floor, and fake kitsunes holding spears.

He ducked down a second hallway. He had the impression that he had circled the palace and was headed back toward the throne room. He didn't want to mess with the kitsune queen, so he spun around and charged back the way he had come, straight through the mass of pursuers.

Kitsunes scattered like bowling pins as the hedgehog plowed through their midst. He kept low, smashing into their legs to knock them down. But he didn't spindash, because he didn't want to kill anyone--just knock the wind out of them. A confusion of illusions followed him, pillars with cactus sticking through them and walls sticking through those. Sonic passed through them like smoke. "Can't catch me, suckers!" he yelled over his shoulder. "You'll have to do better than that to catch Sonic the--"

The trouble with illusions was that eventually one of those walls had to be real. Sonic ran into it head first.

He came to with a pounding headache, wrapped from head to foot in heavy rope. He couldn't move at all. He was lying on the floor in the throne room, and the queen kitsune was sitting on her throne with her legs crossed, waiting for him to wake up and tapping her fingers impatiently. As soon as he opened his eyes, she straightened up. "I hope your head hurts, hedgehog."

"Oh, it does," Sonic assured her. "Got an aspirin? Of course you'll have to hand feed me, because I'm a little tied up at the moment."

"Who are you?" she asked.

"I'm Sonic," said Sonic. "Although you should have figured that out from watching me run. What's your name, foxy?"

"I am Empress Thorn," said Thorn through her teeth. "What are you doing here and how did you get through the shield?"

It was then that Sonic realized that he had dropped his chaos emerald. He didn't have it in his hands, and if he was tied up, then that meant that they had frisked him. It took him a minute to regain his sense of humor. "I came to see the city, your Thorniness," said Sonic. "As for the shield, it may keep out dinosaurs, but it doesn't keep out hedgehogs so well."

"Sonic," mused Thorn, ignoring his jabs. "Where have I heard that name before? Oh yes, from that new one, Miles Prower. Did he summon you?"

Sonic took a moment to answer. He had to tread very carefully or he would endanger Tails even more. "No," he said. "I didn't know he was here. I'm an adventurer, lady. I'm always on the lookout for new things to see. Good thing, too, because you're planning genocide."

"Yes," said Thorn, smiling and showing her fangs. "And we'll start with you. Guards, take him out and execute him."

"Yes ma'am!" said a voice near at hand. Two kitsunes in uniforms stepped up, lifted Sonic by his ropes, and dragged him out of the room.

* * *

Tails and Dusk had made it as far as the foot of the staircase leading outdoors. Sonic had flashed past without seeing them, and so did a mob of maddened kitsunes. Tails froze with his foot on the bottom step, torn. He wanted to get out of the palace, but he had to see if Sonic made it out.

He and Dusk lingered on the stairwell, listening to the thumps, crashes and yells echoing through the palace. Then suddenly it all went silent.

Tails looked at Dusk, ears flattening. "I think they got him," he whispered.

Tails had guessed right. A few minutes later, the mob of kitsunes appeared, carrying Sonic, who was now wrapped completely in ropes. His head dangled, and his eyes were closed. The kitsunes took him into the throne room, and Tails and Dusk followed. They hid behind the bubble pedestal and peered around it as the kitsunes laid Sonic at Thorn's feet.

When Sonic woke up, Tails and Dusk heard the whole exchange, including Sonic's sentence. When the kitsune guards carried Sonic out, Tails and Dusk followed at a safe distance, draped in the heaviest invisibility illusion that Dusk could manage. Tails's stomach churned with conflicting emotions. He was terrified for Sonic's sake, especially because one of the kitsunes carrying Sonic had light-blue fur and white eyes. But he was also so glad to see Sonic that it approached hysteria. Sonic had smarted off to Thorn! Sonic had laughed off their insane city and illusions! It eased some of the caged panic inside of Tails.

The guards carried Sonic down a staircase and down a long, dimly-lit hallway. "So," said Sonic, "how do kitsunes kill people? Gonna chop my head off or just suck out all of my life force?"

"Lethal injection," said Frost, smiling as if he looked forward to it. "Painless and quick. You just fall asleep. However, we used to torture prisoners to death, especially rude ones. How I miss those days."

Tails and Dusk shuddered.

If Sonic was cowed, he didn't show it. "Well, heck, lethal injection's not so bad. I was afraid you were going to throw me in that ravine with all the power coming out of it."

"The Chaos Rift," said Frost.

"Yeah, that," said Sonic, as they stopped in front of a locked door. The other kitsune unlocked it while Frost kept a tight grip on Sonic. Sonic continued, "I saw it when I came in. It burned something awful. I can't imagine a worse way to go."

Frost stared at Sonic without blinking, smiling a small smile. "That would be interesting, now that you mention it. I would love to watch you suffer."

Sonic met his eyes steadily. "Ever met Robo Knux? I think you guys would get along great."

The door opened, and the kitsunes hauled Sonic inside. Tails and Dusk hurried to the doorway and slipped inside just as the door swung shut.

Inside were three empty prison cells. Frost tossed Sonic into a cell and waved his hand in front of it. Where bars should have been, there appeared a shimmering transparent wall, like a part of the shield over the city.

"I would love to execute you now," said Frost, "but we are extremely busy at the moment. I shall extend your life until dawn. And I will consider the means of your death." Frost and his companion turned and left, the door closing behind them with a bang of finality.

As soon as he was sure they were gone, Tails motioned to Dusk, who dropped the invisibility illusion. They rushed to Sonic's cell, where Sonic lay on the floor, trying to work his hands out from between the ropes. His eyes lit up as he saw them. "Tails! I knew I'd find you in here!"

Tails grinned. "Who found who, exactly?" He pressed his hands against the force field, and they passed through, just like the outer shield. He stepped into the cell as Dusk watched from outside, her thumb in her mouth. Tails knelt and began working at the knots.

"I came up here with Sally and Slasher," said Sonic. "We brought the Tornado, but it can't get near the city because of the chaos power. We met these dinosaurs and kind of made friends with them."

"So that's what's outside the city," said Tails. "Everybody just refers to them as 'enemies'."

"Yeah, know what the kitsunes did to them?" Sonic launched into the story of the bomb, and Tails listened as he untied knot after knot. Sonic filled in gaps in what Tails knew, and it all started to make sense. He also began to feel afraid in a different way. Thorn was ruthless.

Sonic concluded, "And I lost my chaos emerald somewhere. It's the ruling green, they can't get their hands on it!"

"I'll bet they already have it, Sonic," said Tails regretfully. "There!" The ropes went slack, and Tails helped Sonic pull them off and stand up.

Sonic rubbed his head. "Dang, I hit the wall pretty hard. Can we just walk through this force field?"

"Only kitsunes can," said Tails. He stepped in and out of it, while it repelled Sonic as the outer shield did.

"Not fair," said Sonic, crossing his arms. "Can your friend get rid of it?"

"I don't know," said Tails. "Dusk, can you?"

She stuck one hand in the force field, waved it around, then shook her head.

Sonic watched her. "She's, like, five or six, Tails. Why is she with you?"

"We made friends when I got here," said Tails. "She sees through illusion and she's been helping me. She does illusions so strong that even Thorn can't see through them."

Sonic whistled. "That's handy. The kid who helped me get in here was like that, too. He couldn't talk, though. Used a notepad."

"Oh!" said Tails. "The robot! He promised to help us escape if I fixed him. He's disguised under an illusion, too."

Sonic stared at him, then shook his head. "Maybe I'm safer in here."

"No, they're going to execute you," said Tails. "Maybe even throw you into the Rift!"

"I want them to throw me in the Rift," said Sonic, grinning. "I was in it already, and I had to work hard not to go Super. I'll kick their butts from here to South Mobius."

Tails stepped out of the cell again. "I'll look for your emerald, Sonic. We have until dawn. Frost might give you the injection after all."

"Frost, good name for him," said Sonic. "Thanks, and don't get caught."

* * *

"Someone's coming," said Slasher, peering down through the shield.

Kantrez looked over the edge of the sphere down into the city. Floating up toward them was a vague shimmer, as if light were playing over a set of mirrors.

Slasher sniffed, but the shield blocked all smell. "Maybe it's my friend."

"I think it's my spy," said Kantrez, squinting. "Yes, it is."

The shimmer passed through the shield and floated up on top of the sphere with them, dropping its invisibility. It was a ragged-looking fox doll with a glowing red light sticking out of its head. It smelled of dirty cloth and rust. Slasher eyed it warily. "What in the world is that?"

"It's a spy," said Kantrez, patting its head fondly. "It was sent here by Dr. Robotnik years ago. But he abandoned it, and I discovered it when it broke down. I taught it how to make impenetrable illusion, and now it observes the city for me. Excuse me one moment." Kantrez touched the fox-doll's outstretched mitten. He stared at it, unmoving, for nearly five minutes. Then he released the doll and sighed. "Thank you. It is good to have news, even if it is bad."

"What news?" asked Slasher.

"The army is preparing to move," said Kantrez. "The Empress captured a blue hedgehog who I assume is your friend."

"Yes," said Slasher, her stomach twisting.

"He has been sentenced to death," said Kantrez, "but the official she assigned to see to it was busy with other matters. My friend here actually helped the hedgehog enter the city and the palace. He is saddened by this development. Also, the two-tailed fox who fixes machines--I assume that is your other friend--is walking around under an invisibility illusion that Thorn cannot see through. He is safe for the moment."

"That's something," growled Slasher. "What's this army you mentioned?"

"The great Kitsune army, of course," said Kantrez, as if expecting her to have heard of it. "They are elite chaos fighters, and my pride and joy. However, the Empress has put them to evil use, and my men hate her. Apparently, according to the propaganda she showed off this evening, Thorn intends to capture an important chaos gem with them."

"What chaos gem?" asked Slasher, with a sense of foreboding.

Kantrez rubbed his forehead. "I doubt you've heard of the Master Emerald. Few people have. It's hidden on an island that floats ..."

Slasher hissed, cutting him off. "I have friends on the Floating Island! They're going to attack it?"

"Yes," said Kantrez.

"We can't let them," said Slasher. "What could we do? If you dropped the shield, would the army have to stay to fight dinosaurs?"

"Probably," said Kantrez. "But many would die on both sides."

Slasher crouched, thinking hard. "Let me talk to the others. I'll be back!" She leaped off the sphere and beat her wings, powering her way back toward where she had left Rain.

* * *

Carya followed the Chaos Rift through the northern half of the city, every now and then jumping out and looking around. The city was quiet enough, but a large area was lit up on the eastern side, and he thought he heard noise coming from it sometimes.

The floor of the Rift hissed as he walked across it, and smoke curled up from under his claws. But the energy could not penetrate his scar armor. He imagined that the power was leaking into his body through the scars; he certainly felt as if he could run faster and jump higher. But he was probably imagining it, he thought.

He left the Rift near the ambient glow, and sneaked through the streets toward it. To his dismay, his feet continued to smoke as they made contact with the ground. He stopped and checked his foot pads. They looked the same. Trying to ignore this strange phenomena, Carya broke into a run.

He arrived at the source of the glow. It was a fenced area with many trees, and it was filled with kitsunes in armor, carrying weapons. They hurried here and there, rolling up tents and equipping various belts and chunks of crystal. On the far side of their camp stood a huge arch made of yellow crystal. The inside of this arch had a flickering, swirling light inside of it. As Carya watched, it slowly expanded until it touched the edges of the arch. Then the light in it faded, and he saw a patch of ocean and starry sky beyond it. These kitsunes were planning to go through that gate and attack someone.

Carya whirled and ran back toward the Rift.

* * *

"What would they do with a chaos emerald?" Tails whispered to Dusk. She gazed back at him and said nothing.

They stood in a doorway, looking into the throne room. Thorn was gone, the throne room empty of all save the white kitsune in the bubble. Tails and Dusk had returned to look for the chaos emerald, but it was nowhere in sight.

"You could ask somebody," Dusk whispered.

"And get caught?" said Tails.

She shrugged. "I can disguise you."

Now there was an idea. Tails thought for a moment. "Can you turn me into Frost?"

She smiled and nodded.

Keeping close together and shrouded with an invisibility illusion, Tails and Dusk set out into the palace in search of someone to ask. After the recent activity, the palace was quiet and seemingly empty. It was close to midnight, after all, and many rooms and hallways were dark. But finally Tails and Dusk spotted a uniformed fox with only three tails, standing guard in front of the main doors.

They ducked into an adjoining hall. Dusk tossed an illusion of Frost over Tails, and a smaller invisibility illusion over herself. Then Tails stepped into the hall and approached the guard, trying to walk stiffly, the way Frost did.

The guard saluted as he approached and stared straight ahead.

"Hello," said Tails, then realized that that sounded too friendly for Frost. He dropped his voice and tried to sound menacing. "I need information. Where is the chaos emerald that the vermin hedgehog dropped?"

The guard answered, keeping his eyes fixed straight ahead, "Sir! It was placed in the room with the chaos bombs, sir!"

"Thank you, at ease," said Tails as Frost, and he walked away in what he hoped was the right direction. Dusk followed him, and they maintained their disguises until they reached an empty stairwell in which to turn invisible again.

"What bomb room?" Tails whispered.

"It's downstairs," said Dusk. "There was a sign on a door near where they took your friend."

"Lead the way," said Tails.

* * *

Knuckles's eyes snapped open. He lay in bed, staring at the ceiling, listening with senses that were not his ears. Something had changed on the Floating Island. There was a discord in the nighttime sounds of crickets and trees breathing in the breeze. It was as if he could constantly feel the Master Emerald, and the constant feeling had changed.

Someone hostile had just set foot on his island.

"They're here," he whispered to Zephyer.

She was already awake, staring into the darkness as he was. "I felt it," she whispered.

The Guardians leaped out of bed and began the evacuation.

* * *

Slasher landed with a thud that startled Rain. He grinned as she jogged up to him. "Can't stay away from me, huh?"

"I need your help," said Slasher. "Can you persuade the allosaurs not to attack the kitsunes?"

Rain stared at her. "Why would I do that?"

"I met a kitsune," said Slasher. "He wants to lower the shield to stop something bad from happening. But the dinosaurs can't attack the city or too many will die on either side."

"You TALKED to a kitsune?" said Rain, bristling and showing her his teeth. "Nobody TALKS to kitsunes!"

"Rain, please," said Slasher. "We don't have a lot of time, and I understand that carnivores completely ring the city."

"More or less," said Rain. He stared at Slasher with his head slowly lowering to protect his throat. "You're asking me to betray my people."

"I'm asking you to take the first step toward peace," said Slasher, lowering her own head.

"I thought you were gorgeous," said Rain. "I knew you had funny ideas, but I didn't realize you were so stupid. I guess it's my job to remove you from the gene pool."

Rain attacked her.

* * *

Tails and Dusk arrived at the top of the staircase that led down to the hall where Sonic was imprisoned. Dusk stopped before a blank wall. "Here."

She touched the wall, and a door appeared. There was no handle.

"It's locked or something," said Tails, pushing on it. Dusk pushed on it, too, and to their surprise, it clicked and swung open.

"Awesome," said Tails, not bothering to wonder why it had opened. He pushed inside, and Dusk followed, frowning at the door.

Inside was a huge dark room. There were three large objects in the middle of the room, illuminated in their own light, so the two did not immediately see what else the room contained. One metal sphere was two feet in diameter, and the other two were less than half that. Each had a glowing chunk of yellow crystal protruding from the top.

Tails froze, staring at them. "Chaos bombs," he whispered. He drifted up to them as if pulled by a magnet. He touched their metal sides and the starp tips of the crystals. It was the first gadget he had seen in the kitsune city.

Dusk walked away into the darkness, and a moment later he heard her say softly, "Here's the chaos emerald."

Tails tore himself away from the bombs and hurried after her. Against one of the dark walls lay a long metal box with various pieces of yellow crystal in it. Tails recognized some of the large flakes that he and Dusk had collected while cleaning the crystal conduits, and felt sick.

In a nest of yellow crystals lay the green chaos emerald, as if someone was testing to see if it would transfer its power to the others. Tails snatched it up. "That was easy," he said. "Now we can just give it to Sonic down the hall ..."

Dusk had walked away across the room to the far wall, her black fur fading into the darkness. Tails followed her automatically, accustomed to staying close to her. He kept looking at the bombs with their crystal tops, and didn't see what Dusk had found until she poked his arm.

Built into the wall was a silent, darkened archway. Between it and the bombs lay a series of metal rollers built into the floor, so someone could fling the bombs through the arch with ease.

"It's a closed portal," Tails murmured. He looked at the bombs. "Let's see if I can defuse these."

* * *

Carya jumped out of the Rift outside of the city's shield, and stood listening and sniffing. Rain and Slasher were not where he had left them. He sniffed the ground for their tracks.

A distant scream echoed through the trees, reverberating off the shield. A raptor scream. Carya growled and sprinted in that direction.

As he drew closer, he heard thumps and crashes of two animals fighting, and an undertone of snarls and growls. An eddy of breeze brought him their scent: Slasher, Rain, and blood. What in the world had happened? He had known it was a bad idea to leave them alone together.

He rounded a clump of trees and jogged to a halt. Slasher and Rain were locked together, gripping each others forearms, snapping and biting, trying to reach the other's throat and guard their own at the same time. Their faces and jaws were streaked with blood already, but Carya could not tell who was injured worse.

Rain shoved Slasher back on her haunches and leaped forward, kicking at her belly with the sickle claws on his hind feet. Slasher wrenched away sideways, but stepped on the tip of one wing and fell. Rain seized her other wing in his jaws and backed away, shaking it. Slasher screamed and thrashed.

Rain's back was to Carya, and he was distracted. In silence Carya ran forward and leaped on Rain's back, landing claws first. His weight knocked Rain down, and Rain released Slasher's wing and writhed, trying to face this new enemy.

Carya's claws scored deep gashes down Rain's sides as he leaped to one side, and spun to face Rain, teeth bared to their roots.

Rain scrambled to his feet and stood facing Carya, but he did not attack. He stared at Carya. Suddenly Rain's small changed from anger to sick fear. Rain ran out his tongue twice, a gesture of panic, then whirled and ran.

Carya listened until Rain's footsteps had faded into the distance, then turned to Slasher. She had regained her feet, but her injured wing hung crooked at her side. As he looked at her, she, too, suddenly smelled of fear, but less strongly than Rain. "Are you badly hurt?" Carya asked her.

"No," said Slasher. "Are you ... yourself?"

"Yes," said Carya. "Why are you frightened?"

"Your eyes are on fire," said Slasher. "There's smoke coming out of your eye sockets, and your feet are burning the grass."

Carya looked down. His feet had continued to smoke as if red hot, and the grass under him had burned to ash. He was unaware of any change to his eyes, though. "I was in the Rift a long time," he said. "I feel strong. Why were you and Rain fighting?"

"I met Kantrez," said Slasher. Now that the fight was over and Carya, although scary-looking, was acting normal, she was tired and her wounds throbbed. "He's on top of the shield. I flew up to see into the city and met him there." She tried to lick a deep bite on the side of her neck, couldn't reach, and stepped toward Carya with her head turned. He hesitantly began to bathe the wound for her as she talked. "The kitsunes are planning to send an army to the home of my friends, and plan to kill them all. Kantrez wants to lower the shield as a distraction, but we don't want the carnivores to kill the kitsunes. I asked Rain for help and he attacked me."

"I saw the army," said Carya, turning to look at the shield. "There are hundreds of kitsunes in armor, with weapons. I saw them open the gateway to your friends' home, too."

Slasher looked at him entreatingly. "What do we do?"

Carya gazed at her a moment. "Are my eyes still smoking?"

"Yes, and your feet, too."

"I have an idea," said Carya, grinning. "Come with me."

* * *

Tails knelt beside the largest of the chaos bombs. His exploring fingers had found a panel on the side. He pried it open and now stared at the wiring inside. There were no wires; it was all strips of crystal held together with some sort of lumpy glue. The chaos energy did not seem to have harmed it. The crystal was all different colors, and Tails could see the energy flow was different in each color.

"This isn't like working on a machine," he muttered. "This is like brain surgery."

"Just pull it apart," said Dusk, looking over his shoulder.

"I can't," said Tails. "If I pull the wrong thing, the bomb might go off."

He held the chaos emerald close to the bomb's housing, using its light to look for other panels. He found two smaller ones. Upon opening them, he discovered small squares of crystal etched with patterns like a circuit board. Tiny, delicate crystal connectors plugged into them. The pattern was familiar ... Tails recalled the circuit he had rewired for class back home. "I think I can change this," he said.

Footsteps outside the door. Tails and Dusk exchanged a terrified look, then they both bolted to the door and braced themselves against it to hold it shut.

Outside, a male voice muttered, "What in the world?" Louder, it said, "The door won't open."

"Of course it will open," said Thorn's voice. "It opens to my touch. Move aside."

Tails and Dusk braced their feet.

The door shifted against their backs, but they kept it shut. Something struck the door a heavy blow, and they felt a muffled burst of chaos power roll over them. The door's metal grew warm, but it did not open.

"I can hold it," Dusk whispered. "The door is held shut with kitsune power, I can feel it. Work on the bombs."

Tails stepped away from the door just as another blast of energy struck it. The door rattled, but held. Dusk looked small and vulnerable against the door, but she did have power, after all. Tails ran back to the bombs and dropped to his knees beside the smaller circuit.

Outside the door, Thorn cursed. "Someone sealed this door. Is the chaos emerald still inside?" She turned to one of the foxes with her. He cocked one ear at the door. "Yes, Empress. I can hear it and all the crystals."

"Is someone in there?"

He shook his head. "I can only hear chaos tones, Empress, not people."

Thorn's eyes shifted to Frost, who stood several feet away and was not meeting her eye. "Did you exterminate that hedgehog?"

A silence fell over the small group. Thorn had brought her technicians and ruling nobles to observe the detonation of the chaos bombs, and this situation was more of an embarrassment every second. Frost never disobeyed orders, especially when they involved torture and death.

But Frost had disobeyed this time. He drew a deep breath and said, "No, Empress."

"Is it possible that his power is holding the door shut?" Her voice was cold.

"I am not familiar with the chaos auras of hedgehogs," said Frost, still without meeting her eyes. "It is possible."

"Take him out and kill him," said Thorn. "This door must open at once."

Frost hesitated a moment, then said, "He seems particularly afraid of the Rift, Empress. I had considered throwing him into it and watching him die that way."

Despite the locked door and Thorn's rising temper, this idea amused her. It amused her so much that she said, "Gentlemen, let's have a show before we detonate the bombs. A preamble to the entertainment, if you will."

Frost led the way toward Sonic's prison, and Thorn and her cronies followed.


	8. Chapter 8

An allosaur stood in the darkness on one foot, dozing, watching the nearby shield through half-lidded eyes.

A crunch of footsteps on leaves drew his attention. He turned his head, putting down his relaxed foot. Then he snorted and leaped backwards, growling. Standing before him was a demon raptor. Its eyes flamed blue, and the ground burned beneath it.

"The shield will fall," said the raptor demon in a hollow voice. "Do not enter the city. Do not attack the kitsunes. Or I will know, and I will find you."

"I won't attack anything!" whined the allosaur. "Leave me alone! I won't hurt a thing! Go away! Go away!"

The demon raptor faded into the darkness. The allosaur turned its back to the shield and stood trembling all over. If the shield fell, it didn't want to know about it.

* * *

Knuckles and Zephyer had rounded up Talon and Silver, the chao Zinc and Chimera, and baby Simoon, and hurried them all through Knuckles's escape tunnel, to the hidden teleporter. There they warped to Knothole village.

They had arranged for the kids to stay with a hedgehog named Serena in case of an attack. They apologized for waking her up in the middle of the night, but Serena assured them that she didn't mind. "I kind of thought you'd get hit at night anyway," she said as she ushered them into her hut. "I have sleeping bags all ready for you."

Sure enough, in a corner of her small living room were two sleeping bags, and a folded blanket that made a small bed for the chao. Zinc was barely awake, and Chimera was still asleep. Knuckles deposited them both in the bed. Talon and Silver sat on their sleeping bags, but they were wide awake with adrenaline.

Zephyer handed Simoon to Serena, along with a carry bag the size of a garbage can, loaded with baby paraphernalia. As she instructed Serena about how many times to feed Simoon, and how to prepare bottles for him, Talon and Silver watched Knuckles sneak out the door. "I knew he'd do that," said Talon very quietly.

"Good thing we're smarter," whispered Silver.

Zephyer finished her instructions and departed. A few minutes later the door opened and she was back, teeth clenched and eyes smoldering. "Knuckles already left, and he took the teleporter on this side back with him!"

"He doesn't want you in the fight, huh?" said Serena, who was placidly rocking the baby to sleep.

"He needs me!" snarled Zephyer. "It takes both Guardians to operate island defense and fight at the same time!" At this point she glanced at Talon and Silver, who both wore a smug grin. "What are you grinning about?"

"We knew he'd strand everybody here," said Silver.

"So we brought an extra teleporter with us," said Talon.

"Great," said Zephyer. "Where is it?"

Silver held up a finger. "One condition. We let you use it if you let us go back with you."

Zephyer folded her arms. "Over my dead body."

Talon laid down and stretched out on his sleeping bag. "Sure is comfortable here."

Zephyer's eyes narrowed. "Since when do either of you have the nerve to play hardball like this?"

"We fought the Black Arms," said Silver. "We want to help fight the bad foxes!"

There was a long silence. Zephyer noticed that Serena was laughing silently until tears streamed down her face.

"Fine," said Zephyer. "But both of you are staying in Hidden Palace with me."

Silver and Talon popped to their feet at once. "Great!" said Silver. He waved a hand, and the teleporter flicked into sight out of a wall cabinet, supported by his telekinesis. It was a flat blue crystal lens the size of a dinner plate, equipped with three sharp arms that planted into the ground to hold it in place.

"You're not using that thing in here," said Serena.

"Right," said Zephyer. "Outside, you two."

Talon and Silver grabbed the teleporter and ran out the door, looking as if Zephyer had just offered to take them to an amusement park. "Bye," she said to Serena, and followed them.

"Good luck," said Serena. "You'll need it to manage those two."

* * *

Sonic marched through the kitsune palace with his hands tied behind his back, and Frost's hand on his neck, under his quills. The kitsunes had not been happy to see that he had been untied, and had been prepared to kill him from a distance with chaos energy, until Sonic promised to come quietly. Frost had tied his wrists so tightly that Sonic had lost the feeling in his hands.

Tails had not returned with the chaos emerald. Sonic assumed that he was still looking for it, and hoped that he hadn't been caught in the process. But he found it reassuring that nobody mentioned Tails. Thorn struck him as the type to gloat if she had anything to hold over his head. As it was, she said in a conversational tone, "I hear you're uncomfortable with the Chaos Rift, Sonic."

Sonic's spirits rose at once. He tried to look frightened. "I can't even get close enough to look in. It burns that bad."

Thorn exchanged glances with her companions, some of whom smiled, showing their teeth. "Good, good. It will make your execution that much more interesting."

They marched him upstairs, out of the palace, and out into the warm night air. Sonic dragged his feet. "Please don't take me to the Rift. Just stick me with a needle and get it over with!"

"Move along, you," said Frost, squeezing Sonic's neck until he nearly shut off Sonic's breath. "I'd rather not kill you on the way there."

Sonic sped up for a few yards, then again dropped to a shuffle. "I don't want to die," he sniffled.

"Then you shouldn't have come here," said Thorn. "Not so cocky now, are you?"

Sonic kept his eyes on the ground, trying to look terrified and not laugh out loud.

They took him through the city and through the northern section, to the edge of the Chaos Rift. In the dark, the trench glowed a dim red, with additional light streaming from the yellow conduits. Sonic felt its power beating on his face, and adrenaline washed through him. He might as well play the charade to the end.

He screamed and struggled, nearly breaking Frost's hold. "No! No! Don't make me!"

The kitsunes closed in around Sonic, grabbing his arms and legs, and cursing as his spines gashed their hands. He teetered on the brink of the Rift, wondering if they really could restrain him if he fought his hardest--then they overbalanced him and sent him toppling into the Rift.

Sonic landed on his knees, scratching them badly, and fell forward on his face, unable to catch himself with his bound hands. He took the annoyance of his hurt knees and used it to fuel his acting, screaming in pain and writhing on the glowing ground.

Lying on the ground exposed his entire body to the chaos radiation. Within seconds Sonic felt the power building inside of him, flowing through his cells, empowering him. As his blue quills turned gold, he tore the ropes holding his hands and rubbed his wrists. The pain faded from his wrists and knees. He floated erect, and looked up at the kitsunes. Their mouths had dropped open in horror, especially Thorn's and Frost's.

"Gotcha," said Super Sonic.

* * *

Outside the shield, Carya and Slasher moved as fast as they could, speaking to every carnivore they could find, scaring them into submission. They had traveled halfway around the shield when they hit a snag.

Carya's chaos charge wore off. His smoldering eyes faded back to blue, and his feet cooled off. When Slasher told him this, he cursed in the raptor tongue. "What do we do now?"

"Let's go back and charge you again," said Slasher.

"There's no time!" exclaimed Carya, whipping his tail back and forth. "The army will already be moving!"

"Yes," said Slasher, looking thoughtful. "What if we took the rest of the allosaurs into the city to attack only the army?"

"The kitsunes would slaughter them," said Carya, head and tail drooping. "I can't be responsible for that."

"Kantrez called them his men," said Slasher. "Is he a general or something?"

Carya looked at her in silence a moment, waging some inner debate. He turned and gazed off into the darkness a moment, then slowly turned to face her again. "He's the king."

"You're kidding," said Slasher, eyes widening.

"No," said Carya. "The usurpers were trying to kill him when I rescued him. The army would probably obey him, if they knew who he was."

"All right then, I have a plan," said Slasher.

* * *

Tails pulled a blue crystal connector out of its socket and inspected it closely. Then he carefully inserted it into a different socket, and checked the large window in the bomb's side. Some of the glowing conduits had gone dark. He pulled out a green connector and set it beside the blue one. Some conduits re-lit, while others faded. "It's like a puzzle," he muttered.

Dusk still stood against the door, hands spread across it, as if holding back an ocean. All Tails could see of her was her white muzzle and the reflection in her eyes as she watched him. "Are you okay?" he asked her.

"Yes," she said softly. "They're not trying to get in anymore."

"I wonder why," Tails muttered, rearranging the connectors.

Suddenly there was a muffled thud, the sound conducted to them through the stone walls and floor. The palace shook in a deep rumble like an earthquake. Tails and Dusk looked at each other. "What was that?" they both breathed.

There was a long silence. Tails worked as fast as he could, trying different combinations, even pulling all the connectors free. But no, some of them had to be connected to darken certain parts of the bomb's conduits. Dusk watched him without speaking.

Running footsteps in the hall outside. Dusk braced herself against the door and bared her teeth. "Open!" shrieked a female voice, and light streamed in around the door frame. A second later there was the whump of an explosion, and air and dust burst in around the door. But the door held.

Outside the female voice screamed, "I don't believe it!"

"It's Thorn," whispered Dusk.

Tails flattened his ears on concentration and focused on the connectors. He had to turn this bomb off before Thorn caved in the entire wall.

* * *

Sonic was having a great time.

The super-charge from the Rift didn't last very long, so he had to stay near it and keep recharging himself. Aside from that, it felt wonderful to be Super again.

He flew straight up into the air and divebombed the foxes on the edge of the Rift. They screamed and dropped flat. Everyone but Frost, who jumped into the Rift. Sonic hovered over him and watched as the fox's blue fur turned golden, as well. Then Frost leaped into the air and flew up on level with Sonic. "You idiot," said Frost quietly. "We can all energize." He thrust out both hands and blasted Sonic with a fireball.

Sonic hovered in place and let it wash over him. As it faded away, he laughed. "I'm invincible, moron! Sonic wind!" Sonic summoned a powerful dustdevil from nowhere that caught Frost and whirled him away across the city. Sonic dove back to street level to look for Thorn, but she was nowhere to be seen.

"Coward," Sonic muttered. He glanced up and saw Frost flying back toward him like a glowing yellow rocket. Sonic met him in a midair spindash, which knocked Frost through a nearby building and smashed him into the city's shield. To Sonic's surprise, Frost stuck to the shield, the yellow glow bleeding out of his body. As he darkened, he slid down the shield and fell thirty feet onto concrete. Sonic winced. Frost struggled to rise, then sank to the ground and lay still.

Sonic zipped over and checked to see if the kitsune was dead. Frost was still breathing, but one of his arms was broken. "That's what you get for trying to kill me," said Sonic.

A surge of chaos power washed over him, brightening Sonic's glow and ruffling his spines. He looked around, expecting to see Thorn working some strange wizardry. It wasn't until a cool, fresh breeze struck him that he realized what had happened. The shield had disappeared.

A second later there was a thunderous crash that shook the city and rattled the walls. Sonic shot a hundred feet straight up to see what had happened.

The sphere that had formed the apex of the shield had fallen. It had been made of solid crystal, and it landed on part of the palace, collapsing roofs and crushing walls and rooms to powder. The crystal sphere cracked, but did not shatter. Sonic heard screams and shouts in the distance. He whistled softly and hoped Thorn had been standing under the sphere when it fell.

Then he heard screams of a different sort from a different direction. Sonic turned to see people running along a street on the east side. Behind them stalked the massive shapes of dinosaurs. "Aw heck," said Sonic, and flew toward them.

A pack of carnivorous dinosaurs were pacing through the city, led by a single velociraptor, his black skin and white scars visible even at that distance. Occasionally he barked in the dinosaur language, and some of the allosaurs trumpeted in reply. Not all of the invaders were allosaurs, Sonic noticed. There were many smaller varieties, mostly on two legs, with thin legs and snake-like necks. Somehow Carya had made them stay together, and not run off into the city to eat random kitsunes.

Then Sonic saw the army encampment, and realized where the dinosaurs were headed.

* * *

Carya had run the remaining distance around the shield, barking, "Shield breach at north end! Shield breach at north end!" The observers in the woods who heard him immediately moved north. These were the dinosaurs Carya had not yet frightened into ignoring the city, and it was a good thing, because the plan had changed.

When Carya judged that he had traveled far enough, he spun around and ran back to the north end, tail high and stiff, neck extended, feet a blur. But it was a long way, and when he finally arrived at the Chaos Rift, he was so winded that he had to sit down.

The carnivores were milling around, bumping their snouts into the shield. "Where's the breach?" a small, fanged dinosaur asked Carya.

Carya lifted a hand and motioned for him to wait until he could breathe. The others turned to watch him, and stood in silence.

When Carya's lungs stopped hurting, he stood up and shook himself. Then he threw back his head and screamed. It was closer to a whistle than a scream, an earsplitting, high-pitched sound that carried up over the shield.

* * *

Slasher stood on the sphere at the top of the shield with Kantrez. As the whistle reached their ears, she said, "He's ready."

Kantrez knelt and placed his hands on the sphere. There was a flicker of light from his hands that traveled down into the crystal. Kantrez stood up and climbed onto Slasher's back, and she launched herself into the air just as the shield vanished. The sphere dropped away below them and crashed into the palace. Kantrez looked back with remorse, but Slasher was gliding in a circle, waiting for the right moment to make her appearance.

* * *

As Carya led his army through the kitsune city, he had to keep barking commands at them to keep them in line. The smell of kitsunes was so thick and strong that it made them crazy. The allosaurs were drooling, and the small dinosaurs ran back and forth, snouts to the ground, trilling in excitement at the freshness of the scents.

"No hunting! Not yet!" Carya bellowed at them. To his amazement, they obeyed him.

As they moved on, Carya glimpsed Slasher high above them, wings outstretched. A warm feeling swelled inside of him at the sight; that was his female up there. Then he reminded himself that she did not belong to him at all, and tried to bring himself back to earth. But the sight of her flying ... actually flying, injured wing or not ... it made him so powerfully fond of her that he didn't know how to cope with the feeling.

Then something else flew across the sky, a being that glowed gold. It swooped toward him, and Sonic's voice yelled, "Hey Carya!"

"Sonic?" said Carya, nostrils flaring. The smell was Sonic, but he also smelled like the air during a thunderstorm.

"Yeah, I got a Chaos charge for the moment," said Sonic, hovering twenty feet overhead. "What's with the dinos?"

"We're distracting the kitsune army," said Carya.

"Awesome, I'll help!" said Sonic, and flew on ahead.

When Carya and his pack reached the fence that surrounded the kitsune army, he found that Sonic had pulled it down. He was flying around and around the park area, yelling insults at the foxes.

The foxes had taken up positions in the cover of trees and fence posts, their crystal weapons aimed at Sonic, and the oncoming dinosaurs. The sight of so much firepower was daunting, but Carya marched on. As he looked at the army, he realized that there were fewer foxes here than he remembered. How many had already gone through the portal? It shimmered at their backs, still showing the darkened landscape beyond.

As he reached the fallen fence, Carya barked, "Halt!" All the carnivores stopped behind him.

There was an ominous silence. The dinosaurs and kitsunes stared at each other. Even Sonic stopped circling and watched from overhead.

Then a voice called, "Stand down!"

The heads of the dinosaurs jerked up, and all the kitsune weapons whipped up toward the sky. Slasher was floating downward on feathered wings, and the kitsune on her back sat tall and visible. Both sides watched speechlessly as she glided down and finally landed on the grass between the armies. She folded her wings, and Kantrez dismounted. He walked a few steps away and stood looking at the kitsune army.

Slowly their weapons sank toward the ground, and whispers reached Carya's ears.  
"Kantrez!"

"It's the king!"

"I thought he was dead!"

"Where's Thorn?"

"It's Kantrez!"

"I have returned," said Kantrez. "Rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated. Now, you have two choices. You can accept me as your rightful ruler and Lord of this city ... or you can remain loyal to the Empress. If you remain loyal to her, I am afraid the consequences will be dire. I have an additional army, you see." He motioned to the silent dinosaurs.

Three kitsunes stepped forward. They all had black fur and armor, but they lay down their weapons and walked forward empty-handed.

"Sir," said one, "I am Soot, regiment Lieutenant." He dropped to one knee before Kantrez, and his companions did the same. "We return to your service, Lord."

One of his companions roared to the troops, "Any of you dogs want to keep fighting for Thorn?"

"No sir!" the army bellowed as one.

"Good," said Kantrez. He beckoned to Carya and Slasher, who moved forward. Kantrez, although still ragged and dirty looking, now stood with his head up and shoulders straight. He looked like the kitsune Lord, even with only one tail. "Now, we have a problem," he said in a low voice to the three commanders and two dinosaurs. "The other three squadrons have already passed through the portal in an attempt to invade the Floating Island. Lieutenant, did they detonate the chaos bombs?"

"No sir," said Soot. "Something went wrong, and Thorn went herself to see to detonating them. She told us to wait twenty minutes. The bombs did not go off, so we began the invasion as scheduled. We are the reserve."

"Thorn is in the palace," said Kantrez. He looked at Slasher and Carya. "Can you take her alive?"

"We can try," said Slasher, glancing at Carya. He nodded.

"She must be taken alive," said Kantrez. "If you cannot achieve that, then withdraw and I will see to it later. Right now, a battle is being waged against the innocent, and I must stop it."

"What about them?" said Slasher, gesturing to the dinosaurs.

Kantrez walked toward them fearlessly, and the carnivores watched him in astonishment. No kitsune was crazy enough to approach a dinosaur. Yet Kantrez did. "Friends," he said, "my people have mistreated your people for too many years. Let this be the beginning of a new era, and fight alongside us."

A dinosaur slightly smaller than an allosaur stepped forward. He had a long, alligator-like snout and huge curved claws on his forepaws. "We came here to eat kitsunes. Who are we to fight now?"

"Kitsunes," said Kantrez grimly. "Thorn was not the only one responsible for my humiliation. But you must only attack those whom I tell you. No one else."

The dinosaurs growled to each other, then the spokesman said, "Agreed."

Kantrez turned back to Soot. "Can you withdraw the rest of the army?"

Soot looked toward the portal, biting his lip. "Not easily."

Kantrez looked at Slasher and Carya. "Find Thorn. Quickly."

As Carya and Slasher sprinted toward the palace, Sonic swooped down. "Hey, I can help. That portal goes to the Floating Island?"

"Yes," said Kantrez, looking Sonic up and down. "With an aura like yours, you may stay supercharged for hours more."

"Here's hoping," said Sonic, and rocketed toward the portal.

* * *

Knuckles stood on a rock on the side of one of the Floating Island's mountains. His sword was stained, and he had a cut on his forehead that kept dripping blood in his eyes. Filling the sky and teeming around him were kitsunes, all trying to kill him.

He had returned to the island just as the full-scale invasion began. Their portal opened at the far southern edge of the island, and they hustled through and immediately established a small base, with extra weapons and a barricade of rocks.

But the kitsunes did not stay there long. Knuckles activated his Chaos Engines, and teleported to his battleground of choice, a steep, rocky mountainside with a small cave for cover. The engines powered an array of chaos emitters that he had placed all around the mountain. These emitters formed a vast, rippling, transparent whirlpool over the mountain, sucking in any person unfortunate enough to try using chaos energy.

The kitsunes had armbands or belts of chaos crystal. They activated these to achieve a super form. But no sooner did their fur glow than the vortex yanked them across the island and hurled them at Knuckles, who awaited them with a green sword made of chaos crystal.

Knuckles also wore a suit of ancient echidna armor, set with green crystal. The sword was a dangerous, mind-consuming artifact that Sonic had discovered years ago, and given to Knuckles for safekeeping. Knuckles only used it in emergencies, because the sword seized the mind and turned the user into a killing machine. But in this situation, that was a good thing.

The kitsunes took their weapons with them as the vortex scooped them up, and as they fell toward the Guardian, they rained blasts of chaos energy down on him. Knuckles retreated to the cave, but the shockwaves of the blasts burned his exposed fur and skin. The armor absorbed the rest and glowed neon green, and green fire danced along the Emerald Sword's blade. The kitsunes landed outside and peered into the cave. It was the last thing they ever did.

"Chaos BLAST!"

The explosion killed or injured every kitsune in three hundred yards, but it also caused a landslide that covered the cave. Knuckles floated above the mountainside, empowered by the kitsunes' own weapons, and grumbled. He didn't have the time to clear out the cave again at the moment.

But even with his prodigious power and psychic sword, Knuckles was still outnumbered a five hundred to one. He fought and fought until sweat ran off him, and yet the kitsunes kept coming. His vortex worked too well: it pulled far too many of the enemy to him at once. Eventually he would tire, and they would overwhelm him with sheer numbers.

Zephyer, Talon and Silver watched all this from Hidden Palace. The Master Emerald could find and show them the Guardian. Their view of Knuckles's surroundings was limited, but they could see him fighting and growing tired.

Zephyer stood with her clenched fists resting on the sofa-sized gem. "It's time now," she whispered.

Talon backed away. Silver had only come as far as the doorway into Hidden Palace, because the Master Emerald's power hurt his head. He ducked outside.

Zephyer leaned over the Master Emerald, staring into its glowing heart. "Master Emerald, activate island defense."

The Master Emerald flashed yellow. It glowed for a second, then released a shockwave of energy that exploded through the room and vanished into the walls. It didn't affect Zephyer, and passed over Talon like a warm breeze, but Silver dropped to the floor, holding his head.

The shockwave traveled through miles of solid rock, emerging from the island's surface at last and sweeping outward. As it struck the kitsunes, it swallowed the energy from their crystal weapons, leaving them dull and dark. The kitsunes themselves collapsed to the ground, clutching their heads and chests as the power went through them like knives.

It hit Knuckles like a tidal wave. His exhaustion and pain vanished, and his red fur ignited with orange light. But as he floated off the ground, he heard his chaos engines screech to a halt as the power overloaded them. Knuckles knew exactly what had happened. "Dang it Zephyer, I didn't want Island Defense activated!" He glanced down at his glowing fur, then looked at the sky. "I've got to increase the capacity on those engines," he muttered to himself, watching the vortex collapse in on itself and disappear.

He kicked off the ground and soared up into the air, twirling the Emerald Sword from hand to hand. It left trails of green light in the darkness. He leaned forward and stretched out his arms as if gliding, and swooped across the sky like a swallow. Below him, the kitsunes lay on the ground, moaning. Not one of them could rise. Interesting. Island defense had never done that before.

Knuckles arrived at the kitsunes' portal at the edge of the island. It was an open door in the air, with golden sparkles at the edges. The pulse of power had not affected it, probably because it was powered from the other side. A single figure sat on the ground in front of it. Knuckles switched the sword to his right hand and descended, ready for a fight.

The figure called, "Hey Knux, nice sword. The armor looks kind of girly on you, though."

Knuckles checked in midair, grinning. "Hey, Sonic. Where'd you come from?"

"The kitsune city," said Sonic, jerking a thumb over his shoulder at the portal. "I was going after the kitsunes as Super Sonic, but right as I stepped through, there was this massive power blast. It sucked me dry."

"Island defense. Did it hurt you?" asked Knuckles.

"Not really," said Sonic. "Kind of surprised me, seeing as I was ten feet above the ground at the time."

"Seems to have hurt the kitsunes pretty bad," said Knuckles, motioning northward with his sword.

"Well duh," said Sonic. "It's island DEFENSE." He scrambled to his feet and said, "Just a second." He stuck his head through the portal and called, "It's okay, the Guardian already won."

"Already won?" yelled someone Knuckles couldn't see. "He killed all of them?"

Knuckles landed beside Sonic and peered through the portal. He saw the black kitsune who had escaped him earlier, flanked by two other black foxes, and a ragged-looking gray one. Knuckles pointed at Soot. "You." They glared daggers at each other.

Soot strode forward. "Did you slaughter my men, echidna?"

"I should have," said Knuckles. "I killed the ones who tried to kill me. The rest are incapacitated." He held up his sword in a defensive stance, and Soot stopped just out of reach.

"Soot," said the gray kitsune quietly. "There's no need. We'll use the Summoner to retrieve them."

"Good," said Knuckles. "I want them off my island. You come get the dead ones, too."

"Of course," said the gray kitsune. "Please accept my deepest, humblest apologies, Guardian. There has been a ... change of management recently. We will not trouble you again." He sounded sincerely sorry, and grieved. Knuckles studied him, fixing his face in his mind. "Who are you?"

"I am Lord Magnifikantrez," said the kitsune. "When I have settled matters here, I will make restitution for the damage my people have done."

"Don't worry about that," said Knuckles. "I just want to be left alone."

Kantrez nodded. "Perfectly understandable." He turned to Soot. "Take some men and run the Summoner."

Sonic stepped back through the portal and waved at Knuckles from the other side. "I still have to kick some butt out here, Knux. See you later."

"Later," said Knuckles, and leaped into the air. He was going to keep an eye on the fallen kitsunes until their brethren summoned them home. He didn't know how long the Master Emerald's stunning effect lasted.

* * *

"I got it!"

The chaos bomb's conduits darkened completely. Tails had finally found the correct combination on the control panel. "Yes!" said Tails, punching a fist in the air. He moved to the second, smaller bomb and opened its panels.

"Please hurry," said Dusk in a small voice.

It had been quiet out in the hallway for some time. After the initial attack, Thorn seemed to have left. But Dusk had not left the door, and kept her palms placed flat on its metal surface.

"Is Thorn out there?" asked Tails over his shoulder.

Dusk nodded. "She's being very quiet. I think she's listening. She's going to do something bad."

Tails was looking as Dusk. Thus he saw the wall around the door explode inward, blowing the door, and Dusk, across the room. Dusk hit the far wall, then the door collided with her. "Dusk!" Tails cried, leaping to his feet.

Thorn stood in the doorway, slowly lowering her arms. All nine of her tails were fanned out around her, their tips glowing. Tails barely glanced at her; his attention was on that door, now a twisted wreck, as it fell away from the wall. It revealed Dusk, now pressed against the wall, now sliding down it in a heap.

Tails ran to her and knelt over her. She looked up at him and opened her mouth, but could not speak. There was blood on her lips, but he could not tell where it came from. As she sank down, Tails caught her and eased her to the floor. "You'll be okay, Dusk," he said over and over. "It'll be okay. We'll get help, you'll be okay." The blood pounded in his ears as fear tore at him. Was she dying? He couldn't tell. She just kept staring at him, mouth open.

"What did you do to my bombs?" snarled Thorn's voice.

Tails looked up. Thorn had detoured from her march into the room to look at the chaos bombs and their open panels. She glared at Tails and pointed at the large one, which was dead and dark.

Hatred exploded inside of Tails. Thorn had just crushed this child, and all she cared about was a bomb that let her kill even more people! He rose to his feet, hands curling into fists. "I defused it," he snarled, trying to keep the tremble out of his voice. "Apparently knowing about machines isn't that useless."

"You?" said Thorn, staring at him. "It took my most skilled engineers to construct this, and a two-tailed brat with no powers was able to destroy it?"

Tails envisioned himself burying his fist into her snout and strode toward her, clenching his right hand a little tighter.

"I don't think so," said Thorn, and flicked a ball of energy at Tails. It hit him in the chest. For a moment all he saw was darkness and circling stars--then he awoke on the floor, trying to gasp air into his lungs.

"Pathetic," said Thorn, standing over him. Her right hand blazed with a handful of sparkling energy, and Tails felt the power radiating off it. He didn't know what that power would do, but he didn't want to find out. With the speed he had learned from Sonic, Tails tumbled sideways, into her legs, grabbed her nearest tail, and bit it.

Thorn screamed and kicked at him, but Tails arched out of the way and regained his feet as she whirled to face him. They faced each other, panting, each loathing the other.

"You're hard to kill," said Thorn softly. She flung her handful of power at Tails. He ducked behind the chaos bombs as the energy melted a hole through the far wall.

Tails circled the bombs, keeping them between him and Thorn. She didn't dare throw energy at him for fear of hitting the bombs, for the smaller two were still active. "Too bad you don't know how to turn them off yourself," said Tails. "And who built them, again? Guess what--everything in those bombs was based on regular mechanical engineering."

"Machines should have killed you," snarled Thorn. "Robotnik had enough of them. When he conquered Mobitropolis, you should have died, like your father. I never wanted a child, and you only had two tails. Two! You disgraced me from birth, Miles, and you continue to disgrace me."

The room seemed to spin, the continents moved, the planet wobbled in its orbit. Tails stopped, staring at her, trying to understand what she had just said as his brain rejected the apparent meaning over and over. "Wait. You mean you're--"

"What do you think I'm saying, genius?" said Thorn, moving around the bombs toward him. "I am Rosemary Prower, now known as Thorn."

Tails woke up enough to keep moving away from her. "You're my mother?"

"If you can call it that," said Thorn. "You are a failure as a kitsune. Machines! All you can do is build machines! No son of mine can be such an utter failure. So I'm going to erase you from existence." The tips of her tails began to glow again.

Thorn was his mother. The knowledge sat on him like a ton of bricks. Tails wished that he had never found out, or that she had died in the coup. Anything but this cruel vixen stalking him, who cared about nothing but dominating and destroying others.

And she was wrong. He did have a power. Tails hadn't thought about it since he arrived. But Dusk had taught him to create illusions, and that, in combination with his own ability ...

Thorn summoned a huge red ball of energy that filled both hands. She raised it above her head and flung it at Tails.

It struck the floor where Tails stood and exploded in tongues of red and orange flame that licked around the room and went out, leaving a blackened, melted spot in the stone floor. Tails was gone.

Thorn dusted off her hands. Had she bothered to look up, she might not have felt so satisfied. Tails had wrapped an imperfect invisibility around himself, spun his tails, and helicoptered straight up to the ceiling. A narrow ledge ran around the walls two feet from the ceiling, and he stood on this, pressed flat to the wall, holding onto his illusion fiercely.

From where he stood, he could see out the hole that had been the door. As Thorn turned to leave and froze, Tails saw what she saw, and had to struggle to keep from laughing out loud.

Waiting for Thorn were two raptors. One was brown with tawny feathered wings, and the other was black with white scars.

"No," said Thorn faintly, shrinking back toward the bombs. "The shield keeps you out."

"The shield has fallen," said Slasher, pacing forward with Carya at her side.

Carya said, "Kantrez has returned to power. Surrender, please."

"Yes, do," said Slasher. "I don't want to have to kill anyone tonight."

Thorn whirled and fumbled with one of the smaller bombs, but her ignorance of machines hit her hard. She had no idea how to activate it. In desperation she summoned a handful of fire and threw it at the raptors.

Carya lunged forward and took the blast on his scarred chest. Instead of the power hurting him, his scars absorbed it. His blue eyes began to smoke.

Thorn screamed. She danced around the bombs, reached the far side, and sprinted for the doorway. Carya followed, but Slasher remained behind. She sniffed the air, peering around the room, then hurried to the wreckage of the door and stooped over Dusk.

"Slasher!" Tails called, jumping down from the ledge.

She lifted her head and smiled. "I knew you were here somewhere. Who is this?"

"It's Dusk," said Tails, looking sorrowfully down at the small black cub. Dusk's eyes were open and glazed, moving from Slasher to Tails to Slasher again. She did not seem afraid, only curious.

"Thorn crushed her with the door," said Tails. "She's hurt."

Slasher sniffed Dusk all over. "She's stunned, certainly, but I don't think she's hurt that badly. Dusk, can you stand?"

Dusk nodded and climbed shakily to her feet, holding Slasher's proffered claw. "Where do you hurt?" Slasher asked.

Dusk pointed to her face and the back of her head.

"Possibly a concussion," said Slasher. "We'll have someone look at you when this is over. I'm supposed to help catch Thorn. Tails, can you get her out of here?"

"Sure," said Tails. "As long as we don't run into Thorn."

Slasher looked thoughtful. "Maybe you'd both better sick with me until we catch her."

Tails picked up the chaos emerald from the rubble, where it had fallen, put a hand under Dusk's elbow for support, and they followed Slasher out of the room.

"Have you seen Sonic?" asked Tails.

"Yes," said Slasher. "He's flying around as Super Sonic, causing havoc and mayhem."

"Oh good," said Tails with relief. "I was afraid they wouldn't throw him in the Rift."

"What were those crystal things in that room?" Slasher asked as they trotted down the hall.

"Chaos bombs," said Tails. "I only had time to defuse the big one, but I can do the rest no problem."

"Hmm," said Slasher. "We'd better not let Thorn get back here. She'd figure out how to set them off eventually."

"Maybe," said Tails scornfully. "She hates machines. Did you know that she's my mother?"

Slasher turned and stared at him with both eyes. "Please say you're joking."

"I'm not," said Tails. "I only hope that she was. And as much as she went on about how much of a failure I am, somehow I don't think she was kidding."

Slasher sighed. "Well, we've been instructed not to kill her by Kantrez--he's like the king--"

"The Lord?" asked Tails. "You found him?"

"Yes," said Slasher. "That black raptor who was with me--Carya--he rescued him when Thorn tried to kill him."

"Wow," said Tails, and thought of that white, nine-tailed kitsune in the bubble in the throne room. She must be the Lady.

They neared the area of the palace near the throne room, and heard thuds, crashes, grunts, and occasional shouts from Thorn. Slasher moved ahead of Tails and Dusk. Dusk walked all right, but said nothing, and watched everything with a bemused expression.

Slasher reached a doorway and peered through. She crouched, tail quivering, then dashed down the hall to another doorway and charged through. At the same time, Carya flew through the nearby doorway, crashed into the wall and landed on his side, where he lay, stunned.

Tails threw an illusion on Carya, but instead of painting Carya like part of the wall, idiotically he projected the first thing that came to mind: a banana.

Carya vanished, and in his place lay a perfect, yellow banana. Dusk giggled and Tails blushed under his fur. Of all the stupid things--

But it was enough. Thorn had been stalking after Carya to finish him off, and when he 'transformed', she stopped in astonishment at the sheer stupidity of the illusion. It gave Slasher enough time to attack her from behind.


	9. Chapter 9

Frost stood in the doorway of the throne room, cradling his broken arm, dizzy with pain and chaos-induced fatigue. Two dinosaurs were fighting with Thorn, and two kitsune cubs watched from an adjoining hallway.

He had hated those cubs from the moment he first laid eyes on them. Miles, because of his ignorance and affection for machines, and Dusk because of her excessive power with illusions. Surely she had other powers ... secret powers ... like so many of the other kitsunes he had questioned.

He staggered away from the throne room, panting and sweating. They were all to be executed, weren't they? All of the newcomers, and the dinosaurs, too. Because of the powers.

He arrived at the room with the bombs without noticing the journey there. He stepped through the ruins of the door and looked at them. The crystals protruding from the largest bomb were dark, but the other two still glowed with a deadly yellow light. Orange-gold ... the color of fire, of the sun, of power.

Frost stood looking at them for a long moment. His dazed brain tried to figure out why he should not detonate these bombs. He could activate the portal and escape through it. The blast would stay confined to the palace, which extended five stories underground. The enemies inside would die ... and so would Thorn. He smiled. Yes, he had longed to reduce Thorn to ash for so many years ... and now was his chance. If he was lucky, the blast would be large enough to vaporize the arrogant hedgehog, too.

He strode to the bombs, forgetting his broken arm, and punched in the activation sequence on the two small bombs. Then he walked to the portal and rearranged the crystals on its control panel, signaling it to open. A white light appeared inside the portal's doorway and slowly began to expand.

Frost looked back at the bombs. He could see the crystal control panel on the nearest one, and it displayed a countdown from thirty seconds. Plenty of time.

He turned back to the portal. The white light in the center was growing, and now looked like a spiral galaxy. It was near enough to touch, yet unimaginably far away. The hole in the center, which was the gate that he would pass through, slowly grew to the size of an orange. Why was it taking so long?

He glanced over his shoulder. Twenty seconds left.

The portal's center had expanded to the size of his head. Still too small to pass through. He could smell fresh air from the far side.

He glanced at the readout. Ten seconds left.

The portal was two feet wide. Big enough. Frost ducked his head and stepped through.

Or he tried to. He had never heard of the dangers of stepping through a half-opened portal. As his foot crossed the threshold, he slowed to a halt, as if he had tried to push his way through molasses. On one side he could see the grass and night sky of the Floating Island, and on the other were those bombs, their timers ticking downward inexorably. He was stuck halfway, fully exposed to the blast.

He stared over his shoulder in morbid fascination, watching the numbers descend.

3 ... 2 ... 1

The room flashed white.

* * *

Slasher slammed Thorn to the floor so hard that Thorn's skull bounced. But instead of being stunned or killed, Thorn laughed. "You idiots!" she shrieked, her voice close to hysteria. "You'll never kill me!"

She reached up and dug her fingers into Slasher's right eye. Slasher wrenched away with a hiss, and Thorn leaped to her feet.

Carya, who had recovered from being stunned, tackled Thorn and knocked her down again. He tore at her body with his toe-claws, and was horrified to feel his claws scraping across her, unable to penetrate her skin. It felt like she was made of metal. He leaped off her and stood between Thorn and Slasher, who was rubbing her eye and blinking. "Why can't we harm you?" he growled.

Thorn laughed again. She had struck fear into the hearts of her enemies with her brilliance. She rose to her feet and flung one arm dramatically toward the white kitsune in the bubble. "Kitsunes can manifest their life force as a ball of energy," said Thorn. "But I alone thought to seal a living being inside of my life force ball. Look at her there! As long as she lives, you cannot touch me, and you cannot penetrate my life force to reach her!"

Tails and Dusk exchanged a horrified glance. So that was why they had felt such revulsion upon seeing the kitsune in the ball. On a gut level, they had known what it was.

Suddenly a gust of hot wind struck Tails and Dusk. Tails looked back up the hallway and saw a wall of fire traveling toward them.

He leaped into the throne room, dragging Dusk. "Somebody set off the chaos bombs!" he yelled.

For a split second there was silence. Thorn, Slasher, and Carya all stared at Tails in horror. Then Thorn bolted for the door. No, not the door--the bubble of her life force.

They all followed her. Thorn leaped for the bubble and sank into it, but Carya leaped twelve feet and caught the end of one tail in his jaws. Thorn vanished into the bubble, pulling Carya in after her. Slasher grabbed his tail, and Tails and Dusk just managed to catch the end of Slasher's tail.

Light washed the room.

* * *

Fire exploded from the broken wings of the palace, and blew out all the doors and windows. Illusion melted out of the stone, revealing the palace as an old, gray house--then the walls fell outward and the roof collapsed. Chaos energy blasted into the night, most of its energy escaping through the ruined wings, shooting up and southward in a brilliant comet-trail of yellow and red sparkles.

Everyone in the city, dinosaurs, kitsunes, and hedgehog alike, shielded their eyes and cursed. Everyone knew about the chaos bombs, and expected to die any second as the chaos energy tore their molecules apart.

But the palace absorbed most of the damage. The expended energy passed harmlessly over the city, although there was strange chaos fallout for several days afterward, consisting of strange birds, large gemstones, confused frogs, and the occasional ocean liner appearing out of nowhere.

As the glow faded, Sonic broke into a run. He had been on his way back to the Rift for another chaos charge, but there was no time. He had to get to the palace. If there was a chance that someone was still alive, he might be able to save them.

* * *

Tails opened his eyes.

He floated several thousand feet in the air over a mountainous country, all snow and woodland, with a lake nestled in a valley below. The air was neither warm nor cold, and there was no wind. It was perfectly silent.

"Am I dead?" he wondered aloud.

"No," said a voice. Tails turned to see the white kitsune who had been inside Thorn's bubble. No longer asleep, she floated in midair and regarded him with deep blue eyes. Her tails spread out behind her like mermaid hair.

"We are dreaming," she said. "But it is the first time anyone else has ever come here. How did you enter my dream?"

"I either went into that bubble, or the fire got me," said Tails. "I closed my eyes at the last second."

The kitsune's eyes widened. "You must have entered the bubble. As soon as you enter, you are forced into this dream-state."

"So where's everybody else?" said Tails, looking around. "And how does that bubble have this much room?"

"Everyone ... else?" said the kitsune. She swept out an arm to move a passing cloud. Out of it appeared Dusk. The black kitsune giggled, flapped her arms, and squealed, "I'm flying!"

"I doubt that," said another voice, dryly. Tails looked. Floating a quarter of a mile below him was Slasher, her hind legs curled under her and wings half open, almost in a fetal position. Carya floated beside her in the same position, and Tails wondered if that was simply their instinctive position when weightless.

The white kitsune waved a hand, and all of them floated up and even with each other. Dusk, however, flew to Tails's side and turned somersaults, still giggling.

"So, we're all in the bubble, asleep," said Slasher to the white kitsune. "Good thing, because I'll bet it's pretty cramped. I'm Slasher, by the way. This is Carya, that's Tails, and that's Dusk."

"I am Kali," said the white kitsune. Her eyes roamed from face to face hungrily, drinking in their details. As Tails watched her, he realized that she had been alone here for years, and was painfully lonely. "If you are all here, then my situation is still no better, and neither is yours. Now all of our life forces are feeding into Thorn's. It extends her life into immortality, and she cannot be harmed while we live. And, as this bubble drains life so slowly, that will be practically forever, too."

"But Thorn is here," said Carya. "I grabbed her as she jumped in, and she pulled all of us inside. I don't think she meant to."

"Thorn is here?" said Kali, eyes flashing. She floated a moment, gazing down at the mountains and forests. There was no sign of Thorn. Then she reached out one hand across the landscape, farther than was possible, her arm fading into the blue distance. She grasped the horizon and peeled it back like a sheet of paper. The mountains and forests rolled away underneath them, leaving a blank grayness.

Behind the illusion cowered Thorn. But here in the dream world, her fine decorations and clothing were gone, leaving only a red fox with a white belly and tail tip.

Tails blinked and looked again. Yes, he had seen right. Thorn had only one tail.

Kali sailed across the blankness and floated an inch from Thorn's nose. Thorn cringed backward, shielding her face. "How dare you!" Kali screamed in Thorn's face. "You took everything away from me and sealed me here! You've sealed everyone here, you disgusting parasite! What gives you the right to do this? It's against every law we have! You disgust me, filthy vixen! I'd take your last tail, if I could!"

And Thorn only cowered lower, curling in a ball and whimpering.

As Tails watched this, he realized that Thorn only had courage while she was the one holding all the cards. As soon as her power was gone, she returned to what she was; a small, vindictive, cowardly kitsune with very little power. But the thing with the tails didn't make sense.

"How come she only has one?" he asked. "Outside she had nine."

Kali looked toward him as he spoke, then returned her furious gaze to Thorn. She stared at Thorn's shivering lump in deadly silence, until Thorn finally dared to lower her arms and meet Kali's eyes. "Did you take my tails?" asked Kali, very quietly.

Thorn shook her head.

"Did you take Kantrez's tails?"

Thorn covered her face.

The grayness exploded with thunder, rolling clouds burning with lightning. Fireballs laced the air, meteors fell flaming through the sky, and beaked monsters with savage talons flew screaming past. Everything converged on Thorn, painted into existence by Kali's fury.

Tails tumbled over and over, unable to stop himself. If he had thought kitsune illusion was bad before, it was nothing compared to seeing it manifested in a dream state.

A hand steadied him, and the noise of the storm faded. Tails looked up to see Dusk waving a hand as if shooing a fly, pushing away the illusion, leaving herself, Tails, and the two raptors back in the grayness. "Too loud," said Dusk.

"Good grief," said Slasher, shaking her head. "Is that what kitsune illusion is like?"

"Not that good, usually," said Carya. "Usually they have no sound."

To their surprise, Kali appeared among them, while the storm continued to envelop Thorn in the distance. "I cannot harm her in a dream," said Kali, "but I can frighten her. If we are to spend eternity together, I shall insure that hers is not pleasant."

"Why does she only have one tail?" asked Tails.

Kali scowled. "Normally a kitsune grows a new tail every thirty or forty years ... but you can steal them from another kitsune, if you know the technique. A kitsune's tail is nine-tenths chaos power anyway. If you can strip that power, it shrinks their tail to nothing and grows a new one for you. Not that it matters, with us trapped here."

"What, can't we ever leave the bubble?" asked Tails.

"If we could wake up, perhaps," said Kali. "But while Thorn lives, we are confined here. And she will live as long as there is life force for her to feed on."

A feedback loop, Tails thought. "As long as we live, we keep her alive. And she keeps us trapped here by living." He tackled the problem from every angle, looking at his friends, pondering the dream state of consciousness and knowing that there was one more variable that he was missing. If he could figure out that one thing ...

Dusk disappeared. She reappeared behind him and said, "Boo!"

He turned. "How did you do that?"

"We're only inside the bubble," said Dusk, so softly that only he could hear. "It got real big when we all came inside. I can fly in here. It's fun."

"You can see through all this?" said Tails, motioning to the grayness.

Dusk nodded.

Tails's voice had drawn the attention of the others. They floated up to them. "How can you see through this?" asked Kali. "You are asleep!"

"No I'm not," said Dusk, regarding Kali frankly. "I think everybody else is, though. You're not moving. Oh, and Tails dropped his pretty emerald. It's on the bottom of the ball."

The variable he was missing.

"The chaos emerald!" said Tails. "Dusk, can you get it?"

Kali stared around at all of them. "You brought a chaos emerald into a kitsune ball?"

"Kind of by accident," said Tails, as Dusk disappeared. "I was just holding it when all this happened."

Dusk reappeared, triumphantly holding out one hand. There was nothing in it, but their eyes were shielded by the dream. They knew she held it by the way her fingers were curled around the gem's invisible contours.

Kali took Dusk's other hand, and the two stared at each other again. Kali's face held a strange expression, of awe and a little fear. "Child," she said, "how old are you?"

"Six," said Dusk.

"Have you always been able to see through illusions?"

"Yes." Dusk made as though to stick her thumb in her mouth, but thought better of it.

"Child," said Kali, "what is your real name?"

There was a breathless pause. Everyone stared at Dusk. Dusk's ears slowly flattened, and tears welled in her eyes. "I don't remember," she whimpered. "All they ever called me was Dusk."

Kali gazed at her a moment longer, then said, "Can you use that emerald?"

Dusk's eyes moved to Tails. Tails said, "Look into the top and say, 'Chaos relocate,' and think of the place where you want to be at the same time."

Kali's astonished eyes turned to Tails. "Can you use the chaos emeralds?"

"No," said Tails. "But my friends can, and they tried to teach me."

"Chaos relocate," said Dusk, and she vanished.

"But that's impossible," said Slasher, pointing at the spot where Dusk had just been. "No kitsune can use chaos emeralds! Everybody knows that!"

"I think," said Kali slowly, "that things are about to change."

* * *

The palace door was buried under rubble. Sonic hardly recognized the place. He found a flattened wall that had revealed a staircase, and the ceiling, while scorched, looked stable enough. Sonic plunged inside.

All the glowing crystals had been shattered, so there were no lights. But so much of the ceiling had been destroyed that dim city light filtered in through great cracks. Sonic maneuvered around destroyed furniture and fallen ceiling beams, and finally arrived at what had once been the throne room.

Here most of the roof had collapsed. Only the twisted remains of the building's structure still remained overhead, constructed of some metal that had bent and not broken. But all the stone and mortar that it had once supported had fallen in, and Sonic could see the stars through the roof.

The room would have been completely filled with rubble if not for the sphere.

The bubble that had once held only the white kitsune had expanded to the size of a small house. Inside floated a white kitsune, a red kitsune, Tails, Dusk, Slasher, and Carya. All of them were asleep, floating gently inside the sphere as if in water.

Sonic stared up at the sphere, aghast. How in the world was he supposed to get them out of there?

Then Dusk looked down at him and waved. She had his chaos emerald in one hand.

Sonic grinned and waved back.

Dusk vanished from the sphere in a twinkle of green light, and reappeared in front of Sonic. "Hi," she said.

"Hi," said Sonic. "I thought kitsunes couldn't use chaos emeralds?"

She shrugged. "I can. Hold on, I'll get the others out."

She blinked back into the bubble, grabbed Tails, and blinked back to Sonic. Tails awoke as soon as he left the bubble. He gasped and opened his eyes, and staggered as he regained his footing after being weightless. Sonic caught him by one arm. "Whoa, careful, little bro."

"Sonic!" Tails exclaimed. He almost hugged Sonic, then remembered that he was a teenager now, and above such childish displays. He shook Sonic's hand instead, and Sonic laughed, grabbed him in a headlock and gave him a knuckle burn. Tails may have felt himself too old to act childish, but Sonic had no such misgivings.

Dusk returned with Slasher and Carya, then with Kali. Thorn remained in the bubble, which slowly shrank until it was only large enough to contain her. They all looked at her in silence, then shrugged and turned away. Then Kali noticed Sonic. "And who might you be?" she said. "What happened to my palace?"

"Somebody blew it up," said Sonic. "It wasn't me, honest. And I'm Sonic."

"He's my friend," said Tails. "He came to rescue me! He brought the chaos emerald."

"I see there's quite a story here," said Kali, looking at each of them in turn. "Let's get out of this rubble first, before the rest of it falls on our heads."

* * *

"Zephyer!"

Knuckles's roar echoed through the caverns of Hidden Palace, startling Zephyer, Talon and Silver awake. They were camped out on the floor in a small cave adjoining the emerald chamber, the hard floor spread with blankets and sleeping bags. It had been hours since Zephyer had activated Island Defense. The Master Emerald had showed her that Knuckles was safe and standing guard, so they had finally succumbed to sleep.

Zephyer checked her watch. Six in the morning. She rubbed her eyes and kicked her way out of her sleeping bag just as Knuckles stomped through the cave entrance.

He still wore all of his armor, but his sword was sheathed at his back. His fur no longer glowed, and his face was smudged and pale with exhaustion. Two dreadlocks on the left side of his head had been cut off close to his head, Zephyer noticed. Someone had come close to killing him.

But even though he was dirty and tired, he stood straight and moved with triumph. He had won.

She stepped around Talon and Silver, who were struggling to sit up, yawning. Knuckles folded his arms and watched her. "So," he said. "I leave you safe in Knothole, and yet you manage to get back here anyway."

Zephyer stopped an arm's length from him and folded her own arms. "Of course. I don't know why you thought you had to maroon me. It's my island too, you know."

"So you wouldn't get hurt!" exclaimed Knuckles. His voice was rough and loud, as if he had spent the whole night yelling. It also had a humorous undertone. He was in a very good mood, and this whole argument was just for show.

Zephyer tried to keep a straight face. "The kitsunes never made it to Hidden Palace, as you can see."

"Because I fought them off," said Knuckles. "Island defense fried all of my chaos engines."

"And it powered you up and stunned all the kitsunes," said Zephyer.

"I noticed," said Knuckles. Somehow she was in his arms, and they kissed with the fury that echidnas seemed to enjoy so much.

Silver averted his eyes, and saw that Talon was doing the same. They made faces at each other.

After a few minutes Knuckles and Zephyer broke apart, grinning at each other. They walked into the emerald chamber, and Talon and Silver followed, not wanting to miss anything.

"Did the island take any damage?" Zephyer had asked.

"Nothing too serious," said Knuckles. "That mountainside is pretty well destroyed, but I had picked it because I didn't mind if it got smashed up. The kitsunes came and got their dead and wounded about three this morning. Finding all the bodies in the dark was a fun chore, but fortunately all the soldiers had this crystal thing in their armor that let their commanding officers find them."

Knuckles laid a hand on the Master Emerald and called up an image of the island. The Floating Island appeared inside the giant gem in shades of green, and rotated. Knuckles tapped the Master Emerald, and the island enlarged until it filled the gem's interior, and they could see tiny trees and rocks on the mountains. The mountainside where the battle had taken place looked as if a bomb had hit it.

"Also," said Knuckles, spinning the image and moving it to another area, "there was a second portal. I didn't find it until nearly dawn. Apparently they meant to send us some sort of present. I guess something went wrong, because an explosion had gone through this portal and ... well, look at it."

They stared. Barely a mile from their house stood a swirling ring opening into darkness. Stretching away from it was a blackened swath, as if a gigantic blowtorch had blown through the portal. The black patch was nearly three hundred feet long.

"I checked it out," said Knuckles. "It was concentrated chaos energy, and it burned through everything in its path. Rocks, trees, earth."

"What in the world was it?" asked Zephyer.

Knuckles shrugged. "I don't know. I'm hoping for an explanation here in a few hours."


	10. Chapter 10

Tails opened his eyes.

He lay in bed in the room he shared with Dusk. The room was dim, and he sensed that it was early in the morning. Groggily he wondered if he would be cleaning the crystal conduits today. He looked over at Dusk's bed, and saw her snuggled down with the blankets pulled up to her nose. Nothing had changed.

Or had it? Tails sat up and rubbed his eyes. Had he dreamed all that craziness about Thorn and Sonic and meeting the white kitsune in the bubble? He swung his feet over the side of the bed and nearly stepped on Sonic's head.

Sonic was curled up on the floor under an extra blanket, one arm flung over his eyes and breathing deeply. Tails squinted at him. Sonic looked real enough. Tails gingerly prodded Sonic with a toe. He felt real, too. So it hadn't been a dream ... all that crazy stuff had really happened.

Tails climbed out of bed on the other side and tiptoed toward the kitchen, hoping to get breakfast without waking anyone. In the living room he found Slasher and the black raptor sleeping side by side, Slasher facing north and Carya facing south, as if they had kept watch during the night. Slasher opened one eye, saw that it was Tails, and closed it again.

Tails reached the kitchen. Thankfully there were two boxes of food on the counter. He skipped past the breakfast food and dug into the lunch sandwiches. He was starving and wanted something sustaining.

As he ate, he replayed everything from the night before, making sure that he had his facts straight. He and Dusk had gone to the palace to hear Thorn's propaganda speech. Afterward she talked about blowing up people, and Sonic showed up. Sonic got caught. Tails found Sonic's chaos emerald for him, then was distracted by trying to defuse the Chaos Bombs. Thorn broke in and hurt Dusk, and Tails got away from Thorn just as Slasher and Carya showed up. For some reason the bombs had gone off, and they had all jumped into the bubble with the white kitsune, whose name was Kali ... then Dusk had chaos controlled them all back out of the bubble.

Tails frowned at his sandwich. That couldn't be right. Kitsunes couldn't use chaos emeralds. How could Dusk do it? She had three tails, and that made her a kitsune, right?

After they left the ruins of the palace, Tails had a confused memory of lots of kitsunes and wary-looking dinosaurs, then of a bunch of soldiers escorting them all back to the apartment. Tails supposed that it was safer indoors, and had been so tired by that point that he had taken in very little of what had happened.

Sonic appeared, wearing socks and rubbing his eyes. "Hiya little bro," he whispered. "Got any more of those sandwiches?"

Tails dug one out and handed it to him. Sonic unwrapped it and took an enormous bite without even bothering to check its contents.

"Heck of a night, wasn't it?" Tails whispered.

"I'll say," Sonic mumbled with his mouth full. He motioned to the apartment. "Here I thought you were kidnapped, and you've been living it up in some really nice digs."

"Nice digs or not, I was still kidnapped," said Tails, ears flattening. "And all the illusions made me think I was going crazy."

"Me too," said Sonic, taking another bite. "I can't wait to get out of here."

In the living room, Slasher climbed to her feet, stretched each leg and wing individually, then carefully stepped over Carya and peered into the kitchen. "Where's this food coming from?"

"In there," said Tails, pointing to the boxes on the counter. As Slasher stuck her nose into them, he asked, "So, who's the black raptor?"

"His name is Carya," said Slasher, pulling out a paper-wrapped object that turned out to be several pounds of raw steak.

Tails hated to ask, but he had to know. "Is he like .. your boyfriend?"

"No," said Slasher, neatly slicing a third of the steak off in her teeth. "Just one of the local raptors. Not that he isn't nice and all that."

Tails looked at Sonic, who merely raised his eyebrows, as if calling Slasher's noncommittal words into question.

Dusk appeared at Tails's elbow, thumb in mouth, and stared at Sonic and Slasher. "Hi," said Sonic. "How's it feel to be the hero, Dusk?"

Dusk sucked her thumb and stared at him.

"She doesn't talk much," said Tails, digging into a box and finding a sandwich for her. She shook her head and made a beeline for the breakfast cereal instead, flashing Tails a shy smile. He returned it. Somehow they had become friends.

"I'd still like to know how you can use chaos emeralds," said Sonic, watching Dusk. "I mean, you're a kitsune. Everybody knows they killed off all the kitsunes who can use the emeralds a long time ago."

Dusk shrugged.

"Did you guys see me go super from the Rift?" Sonic asked. And the rest of breakfast passed as Sonic regaled them with the details of his battle with Frost. Carya showed up quietly halfway through, and Slasher helped him find another paper-wrapped steak.

As they were finishing their meal, there came a knock at the door. Sonic answered it, and found Kantrez and Kali standing there. They were both clean and groomed, and Kantrez actually looked the part of Kitsune Lord. He also had nine tails.

"Hi guys," said Sonic. "Oh, wait ... um, your majesties?"

Kantrez and Kali smiled. "Guys will do for now. Are you all awake?"

"Yep," said Sonic, opening the door wide so everyone could see.

"Good," said Kali. "Come with us, please. We have some things to discuss."

* * *

Sally had stayed awake nearly all night long, sitting in the Tornado's cockpit and watching its radar screen. The kitsune city appeared as a fuzzy green blotch, and from time to time it picked up Sonic or Tails, and occasionally a bright ping from Sonic's chaos emerald.

Sally meant to watch all night, but somewhere past midnight the screen blurred, her eyes slipped shut, and sleep claimed her.

She awoke at dawn with a stiff neck, slumped sideways in the cockpit. A small dinosaur with a beak was nudging her shoulder over and over. As Sally moved, the dinosaur hopped up on the rim of the windshield and whispered, "Look. The shield is gone."

"What?" Sally rubbed her eyes and peered blearily at the screen. "Tornado, what's this?"

The screen displayed a series of geometric squares, like a city layout. Where was the blotch?

"The shield is gone, Sally," said the Tornado. "It vanished at one-twenty-eight this morning. I am able to scan the city in detail, as well as all lifeforms. All of my operatives are accounted for and appear unharmed."

Sally sighed and sat back in the seat. "Oh, thank goodness. Have any of them been back?"

"No," said the Tornado. "I detected a concentrated burst of chaos energy at two-oh-one this morning. Here is its trajectory." The Tornado overlaid a rainbow-colored triangle across the southern part of the city.

Sally bit her lip. "Did it kill anyone?"

"Data unavailable," said the Tornado, sounding disappointed.

"You went to sleep," said the little dinosaur on the windshield. "So we talked to the Tornado. I hope you don't mind."

"No," said Sally, yawning. "What did you talk about?"

"Finding a way out of the valley," said the dinosaur. "The Tornado found us one, through the old caverns. It made us a map."

"Oh," said Sally, not grasping the importance of this. She climbed stiffly out of the cockpit and said, "Let me know if anybody comes back. I'm going to go wash."

"Affirmative, Sally," said the Tornado.

* * *

"I know this place," said Tails, looking around. "This is where landed when we got kidnapped."

The Lord and Lady had led their group back to the building with the clear crystal floor. Today the crystal was glowing with a soft amber light, and standing around, looking dazed and sleepy, were all the other kidnapped kitsunes.

"Where's Thorn?" someone called.

Kantrez lifted a hand and waved to the group. "Hello, everyone. I am Lord Magnifikantrez, and I have taken over management of Azul from Thorn."

The kitsunes looked at each other and shifted uneasily. Tails, Sonic, Dusk and the raptors stood a little closer together. The other kitsunes didn't stand very close to Slasher and Carya.

"What I have found out involves you all," said Kantrez, "so I gathered you all here so I won't have to repeat myself. Thorn usurped my rule five years ago. She tried unsuccessfully to kill me, and imprisoned Kali in Thorn's ball of life force."

The group looked at Kali, pointing and whispering. They recognized her now.

Kantrez looked at Tails's group and smiled. "But thanks to these intrepid outsiders, Thorn has been overthrown and the rightful rulers restored to power. In particular, I would like to thank Carya, the black dinosaur, for saving my life."

Carya lowered his head and looked embarrassed. There was scattered clapping.

"Now," said Kantrez, "I have heard that Thorn kidnapped you all without telling you why. Or did she tell you?"

A blue fox with two tails raised his hand. Kantrez pointed at him, and the fox said, "She said it was to protect us from the echidnas."

Kantrez nodded. "Did she also mention that there are only two echidnas on that entire island?"

The kitsunes exchanged glances.

"I have spoken to the Guardian," said Kantrez. "Thorn attacked him without provocation. Lives were lost unnecessarily, for the Guardian had to defend himself. However, he was not the reason Thorn brought you all here. She brought you here to exterminate you."

There was complete silence. Everyone stared at Kantrez.

"A kitsune named Frost interrogated each of you," said Kantrez. "Each of you admitted to having some sort of chaos-related power, correct?"

The silent foxes nodded.

"Some of you," said Kantrez, his eyes moving to Dusk, "even have the ability to use chaos emeralds."

There was an uneasy shuffling.

"Yes," said Kantrez. "The story of the kitsune genocide is well known, when certain members of the ruling class decided to purify our race, killing all who could use chaos emeralds and allowing only those who could use the chaos field to live. This led to many of us having extraordinarily strong powers. However, as time has passed, and seven generations separate us from the genocide, the ability to use chaos emeralds has resurfaced in the current generation. Thorn planned to repeat the actions of our ancestors and wipe out all of you."

There was a heavy silence. Sonic broke it by saying, "You're not gonna kill everybody, are you?"

"Of course not!" said Kantrez. "Thorn moved to seize my throne only after I voiced the opinion that we should train our children in the ways of chaos gems once more. We are surrounded by chaos crystal. Why should we not use it?"

There was an audible sigh of relief from the assembly.

"Also," said Kantrez, "my own daughter is extremely adept at using chaos gems already." He walked up to Dusk and laid a hand on her head. She looked up at him with her thumb in her mouth.

Tails blinked. "You're Dusk's dad?"

"And mother," said Kali, walking up and kneeling beside Dusk. "We thought that Thorn had killed you, darling. Come to find out that she had shipped you to South Mobius instead."

"This is Christinada," said Kantrez.

As the name, Dusk turned and looked at him, her eyes turning vague and thoughtful.

"And so," said Kantrez, "I will send all of you back to your homes in a few minutes. If you wish to remain here, you may. We will not trouble you again. However, if you wish to remain in contact with us here at Azul, I have a box of crystals here. They allow us to communicate over long distances."

He walked off among the kitsunes, carrying a small box full of yellow crystal shards. Many kitsunes took one.

But Tails watched Dusk and Kali. They stared at each other, and Dusk still had that thoughtful look. "You were only a year old when they took you," said Kali softly. "You probably don't remember me, do you?"

Dusk tilted her head to one side. "I think ..." She slowly reached up and touched Kali's headfur, rubbing it between her fingers. Then she touched Kali's muzzle with her fingertips. They both smiled. Then Kali hugged Dusk, who looked confused, then smiled.

Tails felt someone poke his arm, and turned to see Sonic motioning to him to leave them alone. Tails, Sonic and the raptors moved off into a corner. "Well," said Sonic, "I guess we can go now. Poor Sally and the Tornado don't have a clue what's gone on."

"I need to stay here," said Carya, looking pained. "Kantrez wants me to act as ambassador to the dinosaur tribes." He said this without looking at Slasher.

Slasher carefully arranged her wings at her sides without looking at Carya, taking extra care with her sore wing. "Then we had better go without you. Thanks for all the help, Carya." She walked away with Sonic and Tails, not looking back.

But Tails looked back, and saw Carya gazing after Slasher with his tail slowly drooping.

* * *

"Then we came home and that was it," said Sonic.

Sonic, Tails and Sally were sitting on Knuckles's front porch in chairs borrowed from the kitchen. Slasher leaned on the porch railing, and Knuckles and Zephyer sat in the porch swing. Talon and Silver sat on the steps, listening. It was a week later, and the group had finally got together to compare notes.

"You came back and picked me up," Sally corrected. "And the Tornado had changed the dinosaurs' history forever."

"Yeah, know what it did?" Tails burst out, full of pride over his plane's actions. "See, the dinosaurs have been trapped in that valley for years, since their tunnel system collapsed. They used to use it to get to Central Mobius and trade for supplies and stuff. Anyway, the Tornado mapped a passage that was still open, and gave them the map!"

"That was nice of it," said Knuckles.

"Yeah," said Tails, grinning. "And look, I kept a crystal from Azul. Kantrez says we can use it to keep in touch."

"No kidding?" said Knuckles, leaning forward. "Let me see it."

Tails handed the shard to Knuckles, who examined it closely.

"Let's see, what else?" said Sonic. "Oh, remember that fox robot thing? Kantrez keeps it around as a spy. I asked him where it went, and he just smiled and shrugged."

"He paid me for fixing it," said Tails.

"Oh, and know what else?" said Sonic. "Right as we were getting ready to go, this big blue dragon flew down into Azul. Dusk ran right up to it and hugged it."

"Yeah, he was like her adopted dad," said Tails. "Too bad we had to leave before we saw her parents' faces."

Knuckles handed the crystal back to Tails. "It's a flawless shard, but I can't see how anyone could use it to communicate."

"Me neither," said Tails, holding it up to the light. "I'll bet it's like my thrall sphere, though. I'm going to hook it up to the Tornado's sensors and see what I can do with it."

There was a comfortable silence. A cool breeze blew across the porch, rustling in the flowering shrubs in the flowerbeds below.

"Oh yeah, you guys saw that big burned place, right?" said Knuckles.

"Yeah, where the chaos bomb went off?" said Tails.

"Yeah, that," said Knuckles. "Kantrex apologized all over the place for it. Seems the bomb mostly went off on your side."

"It nuked the palace pretty well," said Sonic.

"Not that it matters now," said Tails, "but we found out the reason that Dusk and I were able to keep the bomb door shut against Thorn. That room had been Kantrez's workshop, and the door would only lock if someone from his family touched it. Dusk kept the door shut, so it stayed locked."

"Hah," said Sonic. "I bet Thorn never thought of that. She's still locked up in her own bubble. Nobody can figure out how to get her out."

Tails looked up and caught Slasher's eye. He had told no one else that Thorn had been his mother, and neither had Slasher. It wasn't something that Tails wanted to dwell on.

Knuckles stood up and stretched. "Anybody want to come look at the burn with me?"

The whole group trooped out behind the house and through a stand of trees, finally arriving at the burn. It looked like a giant blowtorch had left a wide, black trail across the ground, scorching everything to dust. It was damp from the dew of the previous night, and had a vague, ashy smell.

"Dang," said Sonic and Tails at the same time.

"Phew," said Slasher. "That's exactly how the palace smelled after the bomb went off."

"Want to know the weirdest thing?" said Knuckles. "Look at this." He stepped into the burn and kicked at the ash. Under the surface was a fine carpet of green. "It's making everything grow like crazy. Some weird effect of the chaos energy, I guess."

"So plant a tree in it or something," said Sonic, poking a stick into the ash.

"I'm going to plant some grapevines," said Knuckles. "I've wanted to try growing some for years, and now's my chance."

"You gonna make wine or something?" asked Tails.

Knuckles shrugged. "Maybe. I just like grapes."

They walked back to the house, talking and laughing. Everyone but Slasher, who slowed down to walk by herself, head hanging.

Sally dropped back to walk beside her. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing," said Slasher, lifting her head again.

"You shouldn't have left Carya," said Sally, patting Slasher's arm.

Slasher walked a few steps without saying anything, then spoke softly. "I'm not sure, Sally. I don't know him well enough to commit to him. I'm just ... not sure."

Sally looked at the raptor's drooping tail and wings, at the way she walked, hardly lifting her feet. "I think you are."

"I have to work through this myself," said Slasher. "Go on ahead ... I'd like to be alone for a while."

Sally nodded and hurried to catch up to the others, leaving the raptor standing on the grass, gazing over her shoulder at the open sky, as if she longed to leap into it and fly forever.

Sonic was walking with one arm draped over Tails's head, as if Tails were an armrest. "So we rescued you and kicked the bad guys' butts, and everything's good now! Except for being a kitsune who still can't use chaos emeralds."

Tails stuck his tongue out at Sonic. "I can use any other power crystal!"

"But not chaos emeralds, neener neener," grinned Sonic.

Knuckles looked over his shoulder at them. "Want me to give him a bloody nose for you, Tails?"

"No thanks," said Tails. "I can handle him." He spun his tails and took off, lifting Sonic by one arm.

"Hey! What're you doing?" Sonic exclaimed. "Hey! No! Not the pond!"

Fortunately the pond wasn't deep, but it was quite muddy. As Sonic waded to the shore, sputtering and wiping his eyes, Zephyer called, "Hey Tails, better run for it."

Tails faced down Sonic, and for a second he wondered if he should try acting his age for once. Then he thought of being alone in the kitsune city. He was tired of acting like an adult. He dodged as Sonic lobbed a handful of mud at him, and snatched up some mud of his own.

The End


End file.
